Patent ID: 6952817

Claim:
A method of processing a general-purpose, high level language program to determine a hardware representation of the program, said method comprising: compiling the general-purpose, high level language program to generate a language independent model; scheduling the language independent model such that each component of the language independent model is activated when both control data and valid data inputs arrive at the component; defining an interface structure specifying a hardware interface through which devices external to the language independent model interact with a physical implementation of the language independent model, wherein defining an interface structure comprises identifying locations where processing begins in entry methods of the general-purpose, high-level language program represented in the language independent model; including a data input structure for each argument provided to an identified entry method; and including a data output structure for each entry method which determines a result value from arguments input to the entry method; and generating the interface structure in the language independent model during the compiling step.