HCE design flow consists in a sequence of steps which each of one transforms the high level algorithm description (the input C program) into a lower level description, while preserving the original semantics defined by the designer.

In the following a brief description of each step is provided.

The Harwest-C algorithm description and the pre-processing step

HCE C++ libraries enable the detailed description of an algorithm through a language defined on the basis of C++ classes, i.e. the HARWEST-C language. The description of an algorithm through the direct use of HARWEST-C can be a slow, boring and error-prone activity. Due to this peculiarity, HCE provides a pre-processor tool which help the designer in specify the input algorithm using the ANSI-C language with some restrictions and some extensions derived from the ISO C++ standard. In particular, the pre-processor tool produces the HARWEST-C algorithm description from a corresponding ANSI-C algorithm description. For a full description of the language accepted by the pre-processor click here.