Rolf Drechsler

Mathias Soeken

This book describes approaches for integrating more automation to the early stages of EDA design flows. Readers will learn how natural language processing techniques can be utilized during early design stages, in order to automate the requirements engineering process and the translation of natural language specifications into formal descriptions. This book brings together leading experts to explain the state-of-the-art in natural language processing, enabling designers to integrate these techniques into algorithms, through existing frameworks.

Natural Language Processing for Electronic Design Automation

Robert Wille

This book brings together a selection of the best papers from the eighteenth edition of the Forum on specification and Design Languages Conference (FDL), which took place on September 14-16, 2015, in Barcelona, Spain. FDL is a well-established international forum devoted to dissemination of research results, practical experiences and new ideas in the application of specification, design and verification languages to the design, modeling and verification of integrated circuits, complex hardware/software embedded systems, and mixed-technology systems.

Selected Contributions from FDL 2015

Languages, Design Methods, and Tools for Electronic System Design

This book describes recent findings in the domain of Boolean logic and Boolean algebra, covering application domains in circuit and system design, but also basic research in mathematics and theoretical computer science. Content includes invited chapters and a selection of the best papers presented at the 13th annual International Workshop on Boolean Problems. Provides a single-source reference to the state-of-the-art research in the field of logic synthesis and Boolean techniques; Includes a selection of the best papers presented at the 13th annual International Workshop on Boolean Problems; Covers Boolean algebras, Boolean logic, Boolean modeling, Combinatorial Search, Boolean and bitwise arithmetic, Software and tools for the solution of Boolean problems, Applications of Boolean logic and algebras, Applications to real-world problems, Boolean constraint solving, and Extensions of Boolean logic.

Selected Papers from the 13th International Workshop on Boolean Problems

Advanced Boolean Techniques

The development of computing machines found great success in the last decades. But the ongoing miniaturization of integrated circuits will reach its limits in the near future. Shrinking transistor sizes and power dissipation are the major barriers in the development of smaller and more powerful circuits. Reversible logic p- vides an alternative that may overcome many of these problems in the future. For low-power design, reversible logic offers signi?cant advantages since zero power dissipation will only be possible if computation is reversible. Furthermore, quantum computation pro?ts from enhancements in this area, because every quantum circuit is inherently reversible and thus requires reversible descriptions. However, since reversible logic is subject to certain restrictions (e.g. fanout and feedback are not directly allowed), the design of reversible circuits signi?cantly differs from the design of traditional circuits. Nearly all steps in the design ?ow (like synthesis, veri?cation, or debugging) must be redeveloped so that they become applicable to reversible circuits as well. But research in reversible logic is still at the beginning. No continuous design ?ow exists so far. Inthisbook,contributionstoadesign?owforreversiblelogicarepresented.This includes advanced methods for synthesis, optimization, veri?cation, and debugging.

Towards a Design Flow for Reversible Logic

Nabila Abdessaied

This book presents a new optimization flow for quantum circuits realization. At the reversible level, optimization algorithms are presented to reduce the quantum cost. Then, new mapping approaches to decompose reversible circuits to quantum circuits using different quantum libraries are described. Finally, optimization techniques to reduce the quantum cost or the delay are applied to the resulting quantum circuits. Furthermore, this book studies the complexity of reversible circuits and quantum circuits from a theoretical perspective.

Optimization and Complexity Analysis

Reversible and Quantum Circuits

Shengxiang Yang

Franz Rothlauf

Michael O'Neill

Evelyne Lutton

Penousal Machado

Juan Romero

Giovanni Squillero

Mario Giacobini

Gianni A. Di Caro

Andreas Fink

Anthony Brabazon

Stefano Cagoni

Muddassar Farooq

Stefan Minner

Hideyuki Takagi

A. Sima Uyar

This book constitutes the refereed joint proceedings of seven workshops on evolutionary computing, EvoWorkshops 2007, held in Valencia, Spain in April 2007. It examines evolutionary computation in communications, networks, and connected systems; finance and economics; image analysis and signal processing; and transportation and logistics. Coverage also details evolutionary algorithms in stochastic and dynamic environments.

EvoWorkshops 2007:EvoCOMNET, EvoFIN, EvoIASP, EvoINTERACTION, EvoMUSART, EvoSTOC, and EvoTransLog, Valencia, Spain, April 11-13, 2007, Proceedings

Applications of Evolutionary Computing

Formal verification has become one of the most important steps in circuit design. Since circuits can contain several million transistors, verification of such large designs becomes more and more difficult. Pure simulation cannot guarantee the correct behavior and exhaustive simulation is often impossible. However, many designs, like ALUs, have very regular structures that can be easily described at a higher level of abstraction. For example, describing (and verifying) an integer multiplier at the bit-level is very difficult, while the verification becomes easy when the outputs are grouped to build a bit-string. Recently, several approaches for formal circuit verification have been proposed that make use of these regularities. These approaches are based on Word-Level Decision Diagrams (WLDDs) which are graph-based representations of functions (similar to BDDs) that allow for the representation of functions with a Boolean range and an integer domain. Formal Verification of Circuits is devoted to the discussion of recent developments in the field of decision diagram-based formal verification. Firstly, different types of decision diagrams (including WLDDs) are introduced and theoretical properties are discussed that give further insight into the data structure. Secondly, implementation and minimization concepts are presented. Applications to arithmetic circuit verification and verification of designs specified by hardware description languages are described to show how WLDDs work in practice. Formal Verification of Circuits is intended for CAD developers and researchers as well as designers using modern verification tools. It will help people working with formal verification (in industry or academia) to keep informed about recent developments in this area.

Formal Verification of Circuits

Yaochu Jin

Jürgen Branke

Stefano Cagnoni

David W. Corne

Elena Marchiori

George D. Smith

This book constitutes the refereed joint proceedings of six workshops on evolutionary computing, EvoWorkshops 2005, held in Lausanne, Switzerland in March/April 2005. The 56 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 143 submissions. In accordance with the six workshops covered, the papers are organized in topical sections on evolutionary bioinformatics; evolutionary computing in communications, networks, and connected systems; hardware optimization techniques; evolutionary computation in image analysis and signal processing; evolutionary music and art; and evolutionary algorithms in stochastic and dynamic environments.

Evoworkshops: EvoBIO, EvoCOMNET, EvoHot, EvoIASP, EvoMUSART, and EvoSTOC

Jon McCormack

Aniko Ekart

Anna I. Esparcia-Alcazar

Sima Uyar

Evolutionary computation (EC) techniques are e?cient, nature-inspired pl- ning and optimization methods based on the principles of natural evolution and genetics. Due to their e?ciency and simple underlying principles, these me- ods can be used in the context of problem solving, optimization, and machine learning. A large and continuously increasing number of researchers and prof- sionals make use of EC techniques in various application domains. This volume presents a careful selection of relevant EC examples combined with a thorough examination of the techniques used in EC. The papers in the volume illustrate the current state of the art in the application of EC and should help and - spire researchers and professionals to develop e?cient EC methods for design and problem solving. All papers in this book were presented during EvoWorkshops 2008, which consisted of a range of workshops on application-oriented aspects of EC. Since 1998, EvoWorkshops has provided a unique opportunity for EC researchers to meet and discuss applicationaspectsofECandhasservedasanimportantlink between EC research and its application in a variety of domains. During these ten years new workshops have arisen, some have disappeared, while others have matured to become conferences of their own, such as EuroGP in 2000, EvoCOP in 2004, and EvoBIO last year.

EvoWorkshops 2008: EvoCOMNET, EvoFIN, EvoHOT, EvoIASP, EvoMUSART, EvoNUM, EvoSTOC, and EvoTransLog

D. Michael Miller

Mitchell Aaron Thornton

Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD have become a subject of renewed interest in the design automation community due to the emergence of new and efficient methods for the computation of discrete function spectra. In the past, spectral computations for digital logic were too complex for practical implementation. The use of decision diagrams for spectral computations has greatly reduced this obstacle allowing for the development of new and useful spectral techniques for VLSI synthesis and verification. Several new algorithms for the computation of the Walsh, Reed-Muller, arithmetic and Haar spectra are described. The relation of these computational methods to traditional ones is also provided. Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD provides a unified formalism of the representation of bit-level and word-level discrete functions in the spectral domain and as decision diagrams. An alternative and unifying interpretation of decision diagram representations is presented since it is shown that many of the different commonly used varieties of decision diagrams are merely graphical representations of various discrete function spectra. Viewing various decision diagrams as being described by specific sets of transformation functions not only illustrates the relationship between graphical and spectral representations of discrete functions, but also gives insight into how various decision diagram types are related. Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD describes several new applications of spectral techniques in discrete function manipulation including decision diagram minimization, logic function synthesis, technology mapping and equivalence checking. The use of linear transformations in decision diagram size reduction is described and the relationship to the operation known as spectral translation is described. Several methods for synthesizing digital logic circuits based on a subset of spectral coefficients are described. An equivalence checking approach for functional verification is described based upon the use of matching pairs of Haar spectral coefficients.

Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD

Rudiger Ebendt

Görschwin Fey

VLSI CADhas greatly bene?ted from the use of reduced ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) and the clausal representation as a problem of Boolean Satis?ability (SAT), e.g. in logic synthesis, ver- cation or design-for-testability. In recent practical applications, BDDs are optimized with respect to new objective functions for design space exploration. The latest trends show a growing number of proposals to fuse the concepts of BDD and SAT. This book gives a modern presentation of the established as well as of recent concepts. Latest results in BDD optimization are given, c- ering di?erent aspects of paths in BDDs and the use of e?cient lower bounds during optimization. The presented algorithms include Branch ? and Bound and the generic A -algorithm as e?cient techniques to - plore large search spaces. ? The A -algorithm originates from Arti?cial Intelligence (AI), and the EDA community has been unaware of this concept for a long time. Re- ? cently, the A -algorithm has been introduced as a new paradigm to explore design spaces in VLSI CAD. Besides AI search techniques, the book also discusses the relation to another ?eld of activity bordered to VLSI CAD and BDD optimization: the clausal representation as a SAT problem.

Advanced BDD Optimization

Ernesto Costa

Carlos Cotta

Jason H. Moore

EvoWorkshops 2006, of which this volume contains the proceedings, was held in Budapest, Hungary, on April 10–12, 2006, jointly with EuroGP 2006 and EvoCOP 2006.

EvoWorkshops 2006: EvoBIO, EvoCOMNET, EvoHOT, EvoIASP, EvoINTERACTION, EvoMUSART, and EvoSTOC, Budapest, Hungary, April 10-12, 2006, Proceedings

Oliver Keszocze

This book presents exact, that is minimal, solutions to individual steps in the design process for Digital Microfluidic Biochips (DMFBs), as well as a one-pass approach that combines all these steps in a single process. All of the approaches discussed are based on a formal model that can easily be extended to cope with further design problems. In addition to the exact methods, heuristic approaches are provided and the complexity classes of various design problems are determined. Presents exact methods to tackle a variety of design problems for Digital Microfluidic Biochips (DMFBs); Describes an holistic, one-pass approach solving different design steps all at once; Based on a formal model of DMFBs that is easily adaptable to deal with further design tasks.

Exact Design of Digital Microfluidic Biochips

Wolfgang Günther

The design process of digital circuits is often carried out in individual steps, like logic synthesis, mapping, and routing. Since originally the complete process was too complex, it has been split up in several - more or less independen- phases. In the last 40 years powerful algorithms have been developed to find optimal solutions for each of these steps. However, the interaction of these different algorithms has not been considered for a long time. This leads to quality loss e. g. in cases where highly optimized netlists fit badly onto the target architecture. Since the resulting circuits are often far from being optimal and insufficient regarding the optimization criteria, like area and delay, several iterations of the complete design process have to be carried out to get high quality results. This is a very time consuming and costly process. For this reason, some years ago the idea of one-pass synthesis came up. There were two main approaches how to guarantee that a design got "first time right" : 1. Combining levels that were split before, e. g. to use layout information already during the logic synthesis phase. 2. Restricting the optimization in one level such that it better fits to the next one. So far, several approaches in these two directions have been presented and new techniques are under development. In this book we describe the new paradigm that is used in one-pass synthesis and present examples for the two techniques above.

Towards One-Pass Synthesis

Nicole Drechsler

Evolutionary Algorithms for Embedded System Design describes how Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) concepts can be applied to circuit and system design - an area where time-to-market demands are critical. EAs create an interesting alternative to other approaches since they can be scaled with the problem size and can be easily run on parallel computer systems. This book presents several successful EA techniques and shows how they can be applied at different levels of the design process. Starting on a high-level abstraction, where software components are dominant, several optimization steps are demonstrated, including DSP code optimization and test generation. Throughout the book, EAs are tested on real-world applications and on large problem instances. For each application the main criteria for the successful application in the corresponding domain are discussed. In addition, contributions from leading international researchers provide the reader with a variety of perspectives, including a special focus on the combination of EAs with problem specific heuristics. Evolutionary Algorithms for Embedded System Design is an excellent reference for both practitioners working in the area of circuit and system design and for researchers in the field of evolutionary concepts.

Evolutionary Algorithms for Embedded System Design

Frank Rogin

Debugging becomes more and more the bottleneck to chip design productivity, especially while developing modern complex integrated circuits and systems at the Electronic System Level (ESL). Today, debugging is still an unsystematic and lengthy process. Here, a simple reporting of a failure is not enough, anymore. Rather, it becomes more and more important not only to find many errors early during development but also to provide efficient methods for their isolation. In Debugging at the Electronic System Level the state-of-the-art of modeling and verification of ESL designs is reviewed. There, a particular focus is taken onto SystemC. Then, a reasoning hierarchy is introduced. The hierarchy combines well-known debugging techniques with whole new techniques to improve the verification efficiency at ESL. The proposed systematic debugging approach is supported amongst others by static code analysis, debug patterns, dynamic program slicing, design visualization, property generation, and automatic failure isolation. All techniques were empirically evaluated using real-world industrial designs. Summarized, the introduced approach enables a systematic search for errors in ESL designs. Here, the debugging techniques improve and accelerate error detection, observation, and isolation as well as design understanding.

Debugging at the Electronic System Level

Paul Molitor

Bernd Becker

eine Einführung

Technische Informatik

Evolutionary computation (EC) techniques are e?cient nature-inspired pl- ning and optimization methods based on the principles of natural evolution and genetics. Due to their e?ciency and the simple underlying principles, these methods can be used for a large number of problems in the context of problem solving,optimization,andmachinelearning. Alargeandcontinuouslyincreasing number of researchers and practitioners make use of EC techniques in many - plication domains. The book at hand presents a careful selection of relevant EC applications combined with thorough examinations of techniques for a successful application of EC. The presented papers illustrate the current state of the art in the application of EC and should help and inspire researchers and practitioners to develop e?cient EC methods for design and problem solving. All papers in this book were presented during EvoWorkshops 2005, which was a varying collection of workshops on application-oriented aspects of EC. Since 1999, the format of the EvoWorkshops has proved to be very successful and well representative of the advances in the application of EC. Consequently, over the last few years, EvoWorkshops has become one of the major events addressing the application of EC. In contrast to other large conferences in the EC ?eld, the EvoWorkshops focus solely on application aspects of EC and are an important link between EC research and the application of EC in a large variety of di?erent domains.

Rolf Drechsler

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