Algorithm to Hardware: FFT as a Case Study

Abstract

In this chapter we propose a novel design flow. This is neither the hardware design flow of ASICs or FPGAs nor a design flow typical of algorithm development. Instead, it bridges the gap between the two. We go through well-defined steps to translate an idea into a form suitable for hardware implementation. We use the OFDM modulator/demodulator as a design example and use it to illustrate how major design decisions can be made about the datapath and the controller. This includes fixed-point analysis, isolation and design of processing units, parallelism and pipelining, hardware reuse, memory allocation and partitioning, state machine design, and design of flexible micro-coded controllers.