The Dataflow Interchange Format for Designing DSPs

The dataflow interchange format (DIF) is a conceptual frame- work for helping designers of digital signal-processing (DSP) systems to integrate diverse dataflow models, dataflow tech- niques, DSP-design software tools, DSP software libraries, and embedded processing platforms. Somewhat more specifically, the DIF is intended to afford a unique combination of capabili- ties for (1) developing dataflow models and techniques for exploring the complex design spaces for embedded DSP sys- tems; (2) porting DSP designs across various software tools, libraries, and embedded processing platforms; and (3) synthe- sizing software implementations from high-level, dataflow-based program specifications.