Previous | 
Home
Section: New Software and Platforms
ID-Fix
Infrastructure for the Design of Fixed-point systems
Keywords: Energy efficiency - Dynamic range evaluation - Accuracy optimization - Fixed-point arithmetic - Analytic Evaluation - Embedded systems - Code optimisation
Scientific Description: 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).
Functional Description: ID.Fix focuses on computational precision accuracy and can provide an optimised specification using fixed point arithmetic from a C source code with floating point data types. Fixed point arithmetic is very widely used in embedded systems as it provides better performance and is much more energy efficient. ID.Fix used an analytic programme model which means it can explore more solutions and thereby produce much more efficient code.