[mod.ai] Seminar - Palladio Exploratory Environment for Circuit Design

pasley@SRI-KL (Christine Pasley) (05/20/86)

		CS529 - AI In Design & Manufacturing
		Instructor: Dr. J. M. Tenenbaum

Title:		Palladio:  An Exploratory Environment for Circuit Design
Speakers:	Harold Brown
From:		Knowledge Systems Lab, Stanford University
Date:		Wednesday, May 21, 1986
Time:		4:00 - 5:30
Place:		Terman 556

Abstract:

The Palladio system was an early (1980-82) attempt to apply artificial
intelligence techniques to the design of electronic circuits.  Palladio
was an exploratory environment for experimenting with circuit and system
design representations, design methodologies, and knowledge-based design
and analysis aids.  It differed from other prototype design environments
in that it provided mechanisms for constructing, testing and incrementally
modifying or augmenting design languages and design tools.

Palladio had facilities for conveniently defining models of circuit or
system stucture and behavior. These models, called perspectives, were
similar to design levels in that the designer could use them to interactively
create and refine design specifications.  Palladio provided an interactive
graphics interface for displaying and editing structural perspectives of
circuits or systems in a uniform, perspective-independent manner.  A
declarative, temporal logic behavioral language with an associated
interactive behavior editor was used to specify designs from a behavioral
perspective.  Further, a generic, event-driven symbolic simulator could
simulate and verify the behavior of a specified circuit or system from any
behavioral perspective and could perform hierarchical and mixed-perspective
simulations.  Several experimental expert system design refinement and
analysis aids were implemented using the Palladio environment, for example,
a system which assigned mask levels to the interconnect in an NMOS circuit
which took into account the electrical characteristics of the levels as
well as design goals.

In this talk Prof. Brown will describe the Palladio system, its implementation
and some of the lessons learned about knowledge-based systems for
enginnering tasks.

Visitors welcome!
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