Electrical & Computer Engineering     |     Carnegie Mellon
     

Thursday, April 3, 12:00-1:00 p.m. HH-1112

William E. Dougherty
Carnegie Mellon University

The Behavioral Synthesis Coma: Pull the Plug or Wait and See?

Behavioral synthesis allows hardware designers to automatically map high-level descriptions to RTL architectures in the same way that software designers compile programs to executables. This enables drastic reductions in design cycles and manpower while simultaneously allowing architects to explore a larger portion of the design space. Unfortunately, the practice of behavioral synthesis has yet to come close to its promise, and the impending design revolution has remained just over the horizon for close to two decades. This talk explores some of the reasons why the horizon has been so far away for so long, why it may be closer now, and some new techniques for getting to it.

Bio
William E. (Bill) Dougherty is working toward a Ph.D. in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. He received an M.S. from CMU in 1998 and a B.S. from Boston College in 1995. In his spare time, he enjoys using the ocean as a trampoline.