RT Journal Article T1 Reverse-Engineering Optimization Techniques of High-Level Synthesis: Practical Insights Into Accelerating Applications With AMD-Xilinx Vitis A1 Koronis, Jorge A1 Lanchares Dávila, Juan A1 Garnica Alcázar, Antonio Óscar A1 Hidalgo Pérez, José Ignacio AB Modern AI applications contain computationally expensive sections. Accelerator cards and tools like AMD Vitis HLS leverage high-level synthesis and hardware (HW) optimizations to create custom HW designs to accelerate them.Nevertheless, the learning curve is steep, even for those with previous knowledge of HW design, due to the complexity of the optimization techniques and limited information on their interactions and HW effects. This paper quantitatively analyzes the interactions of optimization techniques after reverse engineering Vitis’ optimization directives, both in isolation and in pairs.Over 150 experiments were conducted to investigate three distinct goals: assessing pragma behavior and the rules governing pragma application and optimizations, modeling Vitis HLS latency estimates, and evaluating the impact of optimizations on design space exploration, specifically area and latency. These experiments involve different combinations and placements of optimizations in the loop and function hierarchy of the test bench. Our findings offer guidance on using Vitis pragmas and identify promising configurations for optimizing latency and area. PB IEEE YR 2025 FD 2025 LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/132817 UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/132817 LA eng DS Docta Complutense RD 27 feb 2026