A streaming processor circuit of a processing system is automatically generated by selecting a set of circuit parameters consistent with a set of circuit constraints and generating a representation of a candidate streaming processor circuit based upon the set of circuit parameters to execute one or more iterations of a computation specified by a streaming data flow graph. The candidate streaming processor circuit is evaluated with respect to one or more quality metrics and the representation of the candidate streaming processor circuit is output if the candidate streaming processor circuit satisfies a set of processing system constraints and is better in at least one of the one or more quality metrics than other candidate streaming processor circuits.