Re: Occam for FPGAs

["A.E.Lawrence" <lawrence_a_e@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lakhani, F.N. wrote:
> Greetings, Can anyone guide me about possibilities of using occam/CSP
> for FPGAs. Any resources available ??? Does occam has enough support
> for designing FPGAs ??

The original version of Handel, Handel-AS, was essentially an occam
compiler. In fact, the current Handel-C is pretty much occam with a
C-like syntax on the front end. Barry's compiler took a different
approach and was even closer to occam. Handel-AS had (has) a predictable
timing semantics which is sometimes useful. Barry's compiler used
optimizations which sometimes gave better performance, but made timing
much harder to predict.

So yes, at least two occam-to-FPGA compilers were written starting
around 1990 IIRC, And Handel-C is a current fully commercial derivative
of one of them (and is used much more widely than you might guess).

Adrian