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if you want to know the number of bits constituting an integer look no further. Here is a very simple solution.

int get_number_of_bits(int the_number){
           int bits = 1;
           int div = (the_number/2);
           while(div != 0){
                      bits++;
                      div = div/2;
           }
           return bits;
}

So this is just a simple division by 2 loop, that counts the number of times we could divide the number by two without the result being less than 1 (which is the number of bits -1).

This works for positive integers from 0 and up.

Now if you wanted to know the number of bits required to represent a number of elements (i.e. you want to know how many bits would represent a number of states, elements or anything you like)

then use the same algorithm above, except that you need to change the line:  int div = the_number/2   into int div = (the_number-1)/2

this is because, number of states or elements is never 0.

Feedback is very welcome.

ABSTRACT

This paper represents a report of an individual research project on the important aspects of High-Level (Behavioural) Synthesis of digital systems. The motivations behind automating the process of VLSI design are outlined and the challenges defined. A review of some of the significant works on the subtasks of behavioural synthesis is presented. A number of scheduling techniques are explained, and the interdependence between the HLS subtasks is stressed. The report also shows the importance of low power, reliability and testability considerations at high levels of abstraction in the design flow. The necessity of comparing and evaluating different high-level synthesis techniques is discussed.