Intel® High Level Synthesis Compiler Pro Edition: Best Practices Guide

ID 683152
Date 3/28/2022
Public

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8.3. Implementing a Hierarchical Design

When you use a system of tasks, you can implement your design hierarchically, which allows for bottom-up design.

If you do not use a system of tasks, function calls in your HLS component are in-lined and optimized together with the calling code, which can be detrimental in some situations. Use a system of tasks to prevent smaller blocks of your design from being affected by the rest of the system.

The hierarchical design pattern implemented by using a system of tasks can give you the following benefits:
  • Modularity similar to what a hardware description language (HDL) might provide
  • Unpipelineable or poorly pipelined loops can be isolated so that they do not affect an entire loop nest.