In this paper, Mostow and Balzer report on their design tool for the algorithm-to-circuit portion of VLSI design. They present two small examples of hardware design in which the starting point is high-level formal system specification and the finishing point is a program whose restricted form makes it correspond to a VLSI circuit. Their report emphasizes the transformations for this design process.

The paper has four principal parts: (1) the transformational paradigm, (2) representing design decisions, (3) representing circuits as programs, and (4) the pixel plane example (see also [1]).

A key point is that the design methodology should include a description of the VLSI system in a high-level formal specification language which can be transformed and optimized. The description is a program which can be modified by source-to-source program translations until it reaches the proper form for circuit implementation. Those program translation are part of the silicon compilation process.

In the paper, a set of typical program transformations is given, but more will undoubtedly be developed as more applications are encountered. The paper is a valuable one for people who are working on VLSI design methodology and, in particular, on silicon compilers. REFERENCES :4TF:OLUCHS:OE, H.; AND POULTON, J. Pixel planes: a VLSI-oriented design for a raster graphics engine, :IVLSI Design :1AThird Quarter (1981), 20-28.