What does "design synthesis" mean?

Answer 1

Pure design can be done abstractly with logical statements, written in english, or high level languages like C, VHDL, Verilog, Abel, etc.

Designs may even be functionally simulated from that 'high level' form.

But when it comes down to actual hardware, gates and flip-flop registers must be actually wired together. Logic should be minimized, and timing diagrams obtained from the actual wired gates and registers. This stage of the design is the synthesis stage -- when abstract logic statements are synthesized into reality.

Example: the statement, 'IF A>B THEN C', is an abstract statement, but it represents a real set of AND, OR and NOT gates wired in a certain order (which are hard to draw in this text box).

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