WG211/M15ODonnel

Circuit generators in a functional hardware description language by John O'Donnell

It is natural to specify circuits as functions. The components can be connected together using function application and composition, leading to a domain specific language for hardware embedded in a functional language. In practice, there are a variety of specific kinds of circuit that benefit from a more specialized style of specification, where it is easier to generate the circuit instead of describing its components and connections directly. Many circuits are generated by the family of map, fold, scan, and sweep combinators. Others can be synthesized from control algorithms. The result is a domain specific language with several rather different sublanguages.