Abstract
This third lecture presented the translation of Esterel programs into optimized Boolean circuits. A true conceptual revolution compared to previous approaches based on automata theory, it was born during a collaboration with Jean Vuillemin's team at Digital Equipment, who were looking to better specify the control parts of software-reconfigurable electronic circuits (FPGAs).
It immediately played a major role in completely eliminating the exponential explosions in code size generated by early implementations based on finite automata generation, which severely limited their use. As a result, Esterel is now used by industry for commercial applications in electronic circuitry and embedded software, leading to the creation of Esterel technologies.
The lecture was limited to programs without loops, presenting the general principle of translation, that of each instruction, then the connection with constructive semantics. The more delicate case of loops was dealt with in the following lecture. The lecture ended with a reminder of the Boolean optimization methods presented in 2013-2014, which enable circuits to be optimized to levels of performance often beyond the reach of conventional human methods.
