PETTY@RUTGERS.ARPA (03/01/84)
[Forwarded from the Rutgers bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
SPEAKER: Christopher Tong
TITLE: "CIRCUIT DESIGN AS KNOWLEDGE-DIRECTED SEARCH"
The process of circuit design is usefully viewed as search through
a large space of circuit descriptions. The search is knowledge-diverse
and knowledge-
intensive: circuits are described at many levels of abstraction (e.g.
architecture, logic, layout); designers use many kinds of knowledge and
styles of reasoning to pursue and constrain the search.
This talk presents a preliminary categorization of knowledge about
the design process and its control. We simplify the search by using a
single processor-oriented language to cover the function to structure
spectrum of circuit abstractions. We permit the circuit design and the
design problem (i.e. the associated goals) to co-evolve; nodes in the
design space contain explicit representations for goals as well as
circuits. The design space is generated by executing tasks, which
construct and refine circuit descriptions and goals (aided by libraries
of components of goals). The search is guided locally by goals and
tradeoffs; globally it is resource-limited (in design time and quality),
conflict-
driven, and knowledge-intensive (drawing on a library of strategies).
Finally, we describe an interactive knowledge-based computer
program called DONTE (Design ONTology Experiment) that is based on the
above framework. DONTE transforms architectural descriptions of a
digital system into circuit-level descriptions.
DATE: Thursday, March 8, 1984
TIME: 2:50 p.m.
PLACE: Room 705 - Hill Center
* Coffee Served at 2:30 p.m. *