Advanced algorithms used today in wireless, medical, defense, and consumer applications are more sophisticated than ever before. Vivado® High-Level Synthesis included as a no cost upgrade in all Vivado HLx Editions, accelerates IP creation by enabling C, C++ and System C specifications to be directly targeted into Xilinx All Programmable devices without the need to manually create RTL. Supporting both the ISE® and Vivado design environments Vivado HLS provides system and design architects alike with a faster path to IP creation by :
- Abstraction of algorithmic description, data type specification (integer, fixed-point or floating-point) and interfaces (FIFO, AXI4, AXI4-Lite, AXI4-Stream)
- Extensive libraries for arbitrary precision data types, video, DSP and more… see the below section under Libraries
- Directives driven architecture-aware synthesis that delivers the best possible QoR
- Fast time to QoR that rivals hand-coded RTL
- Accelerated verification using C/C++ test bench simulation, automatic VHDL or Verilog simulation and test bench generation
- Multi-language support and the broadest language coverage in the industry
- Automatic use of Xilinx on-chip memories, DSP elements and floating-point library
Vivado HLS supports older architectures specific to ISE Design Suite and installs automatically as part of the Vivado HLx Editions
Libraries
The following libraries are included with Vivado HLS:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Arbitrary Precision Data Types | Integer and fixed-point (ap_cint.h, ap_int.h and systemc.h) |
| HLS Stream | Models for streaming data structures. Designed to obtain best performance and area (hls_stream.h) |
| HLS Math | Extensive support for the synthesis of the standard C (math.h) and C++ (cmath.h) math libraries. The support includes floating point and fixed-point functions: abs, atan, atanf, atan2, atan2, ceil, ceilf, copysign, copysignf, cos, cosf, coshf, expf, fabs, fabsf, floorf, fmax, fmin, logf, fpclassify, isfinite, isinf, isnan, isnormal, log, log10, modf, modff, recip, recipf, round, rsqrt, rsqrtf, 1/sqrt, signbit, sin, sincos, sincosf, sinf, sinhf, sqrt, tan, tanf, trunc |
| HLS Video | Video library to implement several aspects of modeling video design in C++ with video Functions, specific data types, memory line buffer and memory window (hls_video.h). Through a data type hls::Mat, Vivado HLS is also compatible with existing OpenCV functions: AXIvideo2cvMat, AXIvideo2CvMat, AXIvideo2IplImage, cvMat2AXIvideo, CvMat2AXIvideo, cvMat2hlsMat, CvMat2hlsMat, CvMat2hlsWindow, hlsMat2cvMat, hlsMat2CvMat, hlsMat2IplImage, hlsWindow2CvMat, IplImage2AXIvideo, IplImage2hlsMat, AbsDiff, AddS, AddWeighted, And, Avg, AvgSdv, Cmp, CmpS, CornerHarris, CvtColor, Dilate, Duplicate, EqualizeHist, Erode, FASTX, Filter2D, GaussianBlur, Harris, HoughLines2, Integral, InitUndistortRectifyMap, Max, MaxS, Mean, Merge, Min, MinMaxLoc, MinS, Mul, Not, PaintMask, PyrDown, PyrUp, Range, Remap, Reduce, Resize, Set, Scale, Sobel, Split, SubRS, SubS, Sum, Threshold, Zero |
| HLS IP | Integrate the LogiCORE IP FFT and FIR Compiler (hls_fft.h, hls_fir.h, ap_shift_reg.h) |
| HLS Linear Algebra |
Support for the following functions: cholesky, cholesky_inverse, matrix_multiply, qrf, qr_inverse, svd (hls_linear_algebra.h) |
| HLS DSP | Support for the following functions: atan2, awgn, cmpy, convolution_encoder, nco, qam_demod, qam_mod, sqrt, viterbi_decoder (hls_dsp.h) |
Key Documents
For the most current links to Vivado High-Level Synthesis resources, use the Design Hub View in Vivado Document Navigator and select "High-Level Synthesis".
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| UG1197 UltraFast High-Level Productivity Design Methodology Guide | Methodology guide |
| WP416 Vivado Design Suite | Vivado Design Suite Backgrounder |
| UG871 Vivado Design Suite Tutorial | High-Level Synthesis Tutorial |
| UG902 Vivado Design Suite User Guide | High-Level Synthesis User Guide |
| UG958 Vivado Design Suite Reference Guide | Model-based DSP Design using System Generator |
Application Notes
| XAPP599 | Floating Point Design with Vivado HLS |
| XAPP745 | Processor Control of Vivado HLS Designs |
| XAPP793 | Implementing Memory Structures for Video Processing |
| XAPP890 | Zynq All Programmable SoC Sobel Filter Implementation |
| XAPP1167 | Accelerating OpenCV Applications with Zynq-7000 AP SoC using Vivado HLS Video Libraries |