What's the fastest route from C algorithm to gates?

You've got an algorithm written in C. You can quickly see how that will run on a standard processor core, but you'd be amazed how much faster that algorithm can run on a specially tailored processor. A simple example is an audio stream. If the datapath of a processor is specially tailored just for audio data, that's going to go through the processor much faster, and therefore better quality sound. The same holds true for other data-intensive applications, especially when the datapath doesn't exactly fit into 32 bit words. Find out more from this white paper: http://www.tensilica.com/products/literature-docs/white-papers/fast-path-from-c-to-gates/