Lower-Bound Performance Estimation for the High-Level Synthesis Scheduling Problem

A given behavioral specification can be implemented on a large number of register-transfer level designs. Instead of producing several designs and selecting the best one, synthesis systems may use estimation to reduce the design space. In this paper, we present a new technique for computing a lower-bound completion time for non-pipelined resource-constrained scheduling problem. Given a data flow graph, a set of resources, resource delays and a clock cycle, we derive a lower-bound on the completion time of a schedule. Our technique can handle chaining, multicycle operations and pipelined modules. The technique is very fast and experimental results show that it is also very tight.