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This paper considers the role of performance and area estimates from behavioral synthesis in design space exploration. We have developed a compilation system that automatically maps high-level algorithms written in C to application-specific designs for Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), through a collaboration between parallelizing compiler technology and high-level synthesis tools. Using several code transformations, the compiler optimizes a design to increase parallelism and utilization of external memory bandwidth, and selects the best design among a set of candidates. Performance and area estimates from behavioral synthesis provide feedback to the compiler to guide this selection. Estimates can be derived far more quickly (up to several orders of magnitude faster) than full synthesis and place-and-route, thus allowing the compiler to consider many more designs than would otherwise be practical …