2 From C to VHDL as Quickly as Possible

This tutorial introduces a fast way to generate a processor VHDL model from C source code using the Design Space Explorer.

If you haven't already downloaded the tutorial file package, you can get it from:
http://tce.cs.tut.fi/tutorial_files/tce_tutorials.tar.gz
Unpack it to a working directory and then cd to tce_tutorials/c2vhdl/

A script named c2vhdl should generate all the needed files from the C source code. The script is a bash script using various TCE command line tools, and can be inspected for detailed instructions to generate the VHDL and other files manually.

c2vhdl application1/complex_multiply.c

Now directory called ``proge-output'' should include the VHDL implementation of the processor. The current working directory should also contain the instruction memory bit image file and the instruction encoding (bem) file along with the processor architecture definition and implementation definition files.

Passing "-e" as the first parameter to c2vhdl script tells it to print estimation data, like area and energy requirements for the processor it generates.

Tutorial is now finished and you can simulate the generated VHDL implementation of the processor with a VHDL simulator and synthesize it.