Communication Time Estimation in High Level Synthesis

Abstract

The high level synthesis (HLS) tools may result in a multiprocessing structure, where the time demand of the interchip data transfer (briefly the communication) between the processing units (hardware or software) is determined exactly only after the task-allocation. However, a realistic preliminary estimation of the communication time would help to shape the scheduling and the allocation procedures just for attempting to minimize the communication times in the final structure. Compared to the task-execution times of the processing units, especially significant communication times are required by the serial communication interfaces which are frequently used in microcontroller systems. This paper presents an estimation method by analysing four well-known serial communication interfaces (SPI, CAN, I²C, UART).