Chapter 1 About this Manual

This is a user manual for the Spark parallelizing high-level synthesis software tool. In this manual, we document the various command-line flags and formats for hardware resource library file and the script file.

The manual is organized in the following manner: in the next chapter, we give an overview of the Spark methodology and framework. In Chapter 311Quick Start Guidechapter.3, we present a quick start guide to get the user up and running immediately. For more details about the command-line flags and the way the scripts and hardware description files can be modified, the user is directed to Chapter 414Detailed Instructionschapter.4. Appendices A24Sample default.spark Hardware Description fileappendix.A and B26Recommended Priority.rules Synthesis Script fileappendix.B list a sample hardware description file and a scheduling script file respectively.

1.1 Copyright

The Spark software is Copyright ©2003-2004 The Regents of the University of California. All Rights Reserved.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for educational, research and non-profit purposes, without fee, and without a written agreement is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice, this paragraph and the following three paragraphs appear in all copies.

Permission to incorporate this software into commercial products or for use in a commercial setting may be obtained by contacting:
Technology Transfer Office
9500 Gilman Drive, Mail Code 0910
University of California
La Jolla, CA 92093-0910
(858) 534-5815
invent@ucsd.edu

1.2 Disclaimer

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The Spark software program and the documentation is copyrighted by the Regents of the University of California. The following terms apply to all files associated with the software unless explicitly disclaimed in individual files.

The software program and documentation are supplied "as is", without any accompanying services from The Regents. The Regents does not warrant that the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. The end-user understands that the program was developed for research purposes and is advised not to rely exclusively on the program for any reason.

In no event shall the University of California be liable to any party for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages, including lost profits, arising out of the use of this software and its documentation, even if the University of California has been advised of the possibility of such damage. The University of California specifically disclaims any warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. the software provided hereunder is on an "as is" basis, and the University of California has no obligations to provide maintenance, support, updates, enhancements, or modifications.

1.3 Reporting Bugs

The Spark distribution comes with no official bug fixing support or maintenance and we are not obliged to provide any updates or modifications. However, you may report bugs to:

spark@ics.uci.edu

Subject: BUG: Brief description of bug

1.4 Acknowledgments

The Spark framework was developed by Sumit Gupta with major contributions to the underlying framework by Nick Savoiu. Mehrdad Reshadi and Sunwoo Kim also contributed to the code base. Professor Rajesh Gupta, Nikil Dutt and Alex Nicolau led the Spark project. This project was funded by Semiconductor Research Corporation and Intel Incorporated.

1.5 Change Log

Date Changes

1/12/04 Introduced documentation for the newly introduced Windows version of SPARK. Also, some

additional notes in the VHDL section since output VHDL is now synthesizable by Xilinx XST

12/24/03 Clarified how ordering of resources in [Resources] section affects scheduling

Added an example to clarify the difference between resource bound and unbound code

12/23/03 Added an example of how to make arrays one-dimensional in Appendix

11/11/03 Added clarifications and details to restrictions on input ``C'' code section.

Added more examples in the Appendix that demonstrate how to modify code to make it synthesizable.

09/1/03 First release of document

Date	Changes
1/12/04	Introduced documentation for the newly introduced Windows version of SPARK. Also, some
	additional notes in the VHDL section since output VHDL is now synthesizable by Xilinx XST
12/24/03	Clarified how ordering of resources in [Resources] section affects scheduling
	Added an example to clarify the difference between resource bound and unbound code
12/23/03	Added an example of how to make arrays one-dimensional in Appendix
11/11/03	Added clarifications and details to restrictions on input ``C'' code section.
	Added more examples in the Appendix that demonstrate how to modify code to make it synthesizable.
09/1/03	First release of document