FPGA-based implementation of recursive algorithms

The paper suggests a novel method for implementing recursive algorithms in hardware. The required support for recursion has been provided through a modular and a hierarchical specification of it control unit that can be translated to an implementation of the respective hardware circuit on the basis of a recursive hierarchical finite state machine and through a mechanism that permits the contents of an execution unit to be stored/restored between hierarchical calls/retums. The paper describes all the details that are required to implement recursive algorithms in hardware. It begins with software (C++) models and finishes with synthesizable VHDL codes. Two practical applications of recursive algorithms in the data sorting and compression area have been studied in detail. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.