Description:
As high-level synthesis is on its way to become widely accepted to increase productivity of industrial design flows, the EDA community has to face the new challenges of future Electronic System Level (ESL) synthesis. Nowadays, ESL design is a commonly accepted acronym used in the context of modeling and simulation. However, neglecting synthesis as a major part in the design flow will result in an enormous implementation gap between ESL and established hardware and embedded software design flows. Bridging this implementation gap manually seems prohibitive due to future application/implementation complexities. Although ESL synthesis has been announced by many roadmaps and companies, still there is no solution available or at least a common sense on what ESL synthesis could or should be.

The aim of the workshop is to help forming an understanding of the necessities of future ESL methodologies and tools by bringing together potential users, tool vendors, and research institutes. Questions to be addressed during the workshop are:

• What exactly is ESL synthesis?
• How to close the implementation gap?
• What are the requirements for future ESL synthesis tools?
• What is a successful business model for ESL synthesis?

In this workshop, different points of view will be discussed by

• potential users of ESL synthesis tools, from distinguished application domains
• tool vendors already having established a successful business on algorithm, embedded software, or hardware design tools, and
• academic research institutes from around the world showing recent progress in ESL synthesis.

At the heart of this workshop, there will be a panel discussion focusing on the question: Will there be a market for ESL synthesis tools and, if yes, what are the requirements for such tools?

Who should attend?
This Friday Workshop gives an extensive overview on research directions in ESL synthesis, forthcoming ideas in EDA synthesis tools, and design approaches used by companies. The workshop is targeted to researchers and professionals who want to get an insight in future design methodologies as well as managers who want to acquire a basic knowledge on ESL synthesis.