Application of a Generative Grammar for the Automated Architectural Exploration of Digital System-on-Chip (SoC) Platforms

生成语法在数字片上系统 (SoC) 平台自动架构探索中的应用

• 批准号: 231839943
• 负责人: Professor Dr.-Ing. Ulf Schlichtmann
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Entwurfsautomatisierung (EDA)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2012-12-31 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/231839943?language=en
• 关键词: Application; Generative; Grammar; Automated; Architectural

Embedded systems are found in many technical applications, ranging from household devices, consumer electronics to the control and surveillance of trains or industrial robots. They are known as the hidden champions of the industry because their growing computational power made various innovations possible in the past and will make even more possible in the future. The resulting rise in complexity of these systems, as well as the integration on a single silicon die as system-on-chip or short SoC, calls for new design methods for tomorrows systems. For this, a fast SoC realization can be achieved by a platform-based design flow. This requires that existing modules, so called intellectual property blocks, are created to form a SoC platform. This platform must exhibit the ability to be configurable to adapt to new requirements and specifications. Today, this construction and configuration of the platform architecture is often done manually. This limits the efficiency because only a limited number of configurations can be investigated.In this project, a novel and highly efficient approach to support the platform architecture construction step during the synthesis of the system will be developed. For the optimization of the architecture, the application of so-called generative grammars and search methods from artificial intelligence will be investigated, which have never been applied in this context. This automation poses a challenging optimization problem because the topology of the system is altered and discrete parameters must be optimized. This methodology promises a very formal description of the topological changes during the optimization of the platform architecture, which is comprehensive to the user and allows interactive control, if this is wished. The efficiency of the method will be investigated on the platform-based design of a subsystem that is based on the open source Wishbone bus specification and OpenRISC processor architecture from OpenCores. The results of this research project will also be of interest for other disciplines since similar optimization problems with discrete parameters and topological changes can be found in many other scientific and technical fields.

嵌入式系统应用于许多技术应用中，从家用设备、消费电子产品到火车或工业机器人的控制和监控。他们被称为行业的隐形冠军，因为他们不断增长的计算能力使过去的各种创新成为可能，并将在未来创造更多的可能。这些系统的复杂性以及作为片上系统或短SoC的单个硅管芯上的集成的结果增加，要求为明天的系统提供新的设计方法。为此，可以通过基于平台的设计流程来实现快速的SoC实现。这需要创建现有模块（所谓的知识产权块）以形成SoC平台。该平台必须具有可配置的能力，以适应新的需求和规范。如今，平台架构的这种构造和配置通常是手动完成的。这限制了效率，因为只有有限数量的配置可以调查。在这个项目中，一个新的和高效的方法来支持平台架构的建设步骤，在综合的系统将被开发。为了优化体系结构，将研究所谓的生成语法和人工智能搜索方法的应用，这些方法从未在此背景下应用过。这种自动化提出了一个具有挑战性的优化问题，因为系统的拓扑结构被改变，离散参数必须进行优化。这种方法保证了一个非常正式的描述的拓扑结构的优化过程中的变化，这是全面的用户，并允许交互式控制，如果这是希望的。该方法的效率将被调查的子系统，是基于开源的Wishbone总线规范和OpenRISC处理器架构从OpenCores的基于平台的设计。这个研究项目的结果也将是其他学科的兴趣，因为类似的离散参数和拓扑变化的优化问题，可以在许多其他科学和技术领域。