Utility-Based Control of Hierarchical Design

基于效用的分层设计控制

• 批准号: 9813194
• 负责人: Louis Steinberg
• 金额: $ 34.93万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1998
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1998-09-01 至 2002-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9813194&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Utility; Based; Control; Hierarchical; Design

This grant provides funding for the development and characterization of a method for controlling multi-level design optimization. This method is intended to apply to design problems that are carried out in a series of stages or abstraction levels, where the result of each level sets the problem for the next level. For instance, in microprocessor design one level might represent the microprocessor as a set of boolean logic formulas, another might convert these formulas into wiring diagrams of transistors, and another might convert the wiring diagram into a specific layout of wires and doping regions on the chip. The method assumes that we have an optimizer for each level and that each optimizer uses stochastic methods, such as simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, or multi-start hill climbing. The method coordinates and controls the use of these optimizers to explore the space of alternative designs in an efficient way, based on an estimate it makes for each current alternative at each level of what the `utility` would be of using that alternative as the basis for generating the desired final design, where utility is the value of the resulting final design minus the cost in design effort to find it. Currently this method has had an initial feasibility test on one task domain. The primary goals of this research are to better test the generality of this approach and to extend it to as broad as possible a class of problems and models of cost. If successful, the research funded by this grant will result in a version of this method that is applicable to a broad spectrum of design optimization tasks, along with a characterization of what kinds of tasks it is most useful for, of how best to apply it to a given task, and of how well it can be expected to perform. This should lead to improved tradeoffs between design time and design quality in many design domains.

该补助金为控制多级设计优化的方法的开发和表征提供资金。 这种方法旨在应用于在一系列阶段或抽象级别中执行的设计问题，其中每个级别的结果为下一个级别设置问题。 例如，在微处理器设计中，一个层次可以将微处理器表示为一组布尔逻辑公式，另一个层次可以将这些公式转换为晶体管的布线图，另一个层次可以将布线图转换为芯片上的布线和掺杂区域的特定布局。 该方法假设我们为每个级别都有一个优化器，并且每个优化器都使用随机方法，例如模拟退火，遗传算法或多起点爬山法。 该方法协调和控制这些优化器的使用，以有效的方式探索替代设计的空间，基于它对每个级别的每个当前替代方案所做的估计，即使用该替代方案作为生成所需最终设计的基础的“效用”，其中效用是最终设计的价值减去设计成本。目前，该方法已经在一个任务域上进行了初步的可行性测试。 本研究的主要目标是更好地测试这种方法的通用性，并将其扩展到尽可能广泛的一类问题和模型的成本。 如果成功的话，由该基金资助的研究将导致这种方法的一个版本，适用于广泛的设计优化任务，沿着的特征是什么样的任务，它是最有用的，如何最好地将其应用于一个给定的任务，以及如何以及它可以预期执行。 这将导致在许多设计领域的设计时间和设计质量之间的改进的权衡。