Section: Software and Platforms

ID.Fix: Infrastructure for the Design of Fixed-point Systems

Participants : Olivier Sentieys [corresponding author] , Romuald Rocher, Nicolas Simon.

Keywords: fixed-point arithmetic, source-to-source code transformation, accuracy optimization, dynamic range evaluation

The different techniques proposed by the team for fixed-point conversion are implemented on the ID.Fix infrastructure. The application is described with a C code using floating-point data types and different pragmas, used to specify parameters (dynamic, input/output word-length, delay operations) for the fixed-point conversion. This tool determines and optimizes the fixed-point specification and then, generates a C code using fixed-point data types (ac_fixed ) from Mentor Graphics. The infrastructure is made-up of two main modules corresponding to the fixed-point conversion (ID.Fix-Conv) and the accuracy evaluation (ID.Fix-Eval)

The different developments carried-out in 2013 allowed us to obtain a fixed-point conversion tool handling functions, conditional structures and repetitive structures having a fixed number of iterations during time. The frontend has been modified to reduce limitations due to syntax of C langage. A new data type (sc_fixed) is now able to be generated from the back-end. In the context of the DEFIS ANR project, the ID.Fix tool has been reorganized to be integrated in the DEFIS toolflow.

In 2013, ID.Fix has been demonstrated during University Booth at IEEE/ACM DATE and IEEE/ACM DAC. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKYA4hezplQ