Another research topic I have worked on is the exploitation of the Java language as an Hardware Description Language for IP-Core definition in the context of the DRESD project. The main advantage will be the leveraging of the familiarity of the developer with an existing language, and the exploitation of existing IDE for the Java language, while maintaining the performance typical of the Caronte architecture, developed in the DRESD project.
More details can be found at: http://www.dresd.org/