Section: New 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 2014 allowed to have a complete compatibility with GeCos. The structure of each node in the graph has been changed to simplify the graph modifications. The Octave software has been added instead of Matlab for LTI and recursive systems conversion. A development has started to replace Matlab/Octave tool by a C code algorithm to reduce optimization time. In the context of the ANR DEFIS project, the ID.Fix tool has been reorganized to be integrated in the DEFIS toolflow.

In 2014, ID.Fix has been demonstrated during University Booth at IEEE/ACM DATE.