1. Register-Transfer Level (RTL) Design The combination of a controller and datapath is known as a processor. The most common method of designing a processor is known as register-transfer level (RTL) design. A control-dominated design is a design whose controller possesses the heart of the design; A data-dominated design is a design whose datapath possesses the heart of the design. In the RTL design, a designer specifies the registers, describes the possible transfers and operations performed on input, output or register data, and defines the control that specifies when to transfer and operate on data. There are two general categories of RTL design:

3. Example 5.1: Laser-based distance measurer

4. Step 1 – Create a high-level state machine

5. Step 2 – Create a datapath

6. Step 3 – Connect the datapath to a controller

7. Step 4 – Derive the controller’s FSM

8. Example 5.4: Video compression – sum-of-absolute differences