Design entropy concept

Abstract

In general, this work will deal with measuring complexity. The focus question is towards addressing complexity in an adequate way. This work concentrates on digital circuits and digital hardware. For this field of computer science the complexity for circuits will be calculated.Therefore, a new complexity measure will be introduced, called design entropy. It allows a mathematical calculation of complexity resulting in figures. These allow a direct evaluation and comparison between different systems and realizations. The application and important capabilities of this measurement will be demonstrated on different examples. Paper organizationThis paper is organized as follows. Section 1 identifies a general need for a new and different measurement for complexity. The following section 2 describes the approach and the goals of the design entropy concept. Section 3 analyzes the origins for complexity and can deduce the formulas for the design entropy. Before section 5 presents the formulas of the concept section 4 will clarify some terminology. The final section 6 will apply the formulas on some different examples.

Quantitative Analysis of Software Code by States

“…In [14] a measurement was proposed which doesn't rely on empirical data. This concept bases its calculations on an abstract variable: states.…”

“…The set of states is the abstraction of a real system" [15]. This method was used to calculate the complexity of in hardware designs [14] [13]. Thereby, the complexity was not estimated anymore, but calculated [14].…”

“…Also, the complexity method has been used to obtain key variables of projects [12]. In [15] the authors of [14] described why their approach with states is capable of addressing complexity in different fields.…”

“…The main statements from the works of [14] are summarized in the following in order to apply the method on software in the following. The approach of the design entropy bases on Shannon's information entropy.…”

“…Because the mathematical method to calculate complexity is based the idea of information interchange and the formulas can directly be derived from Shannon's information entropy, the complexity measure is also called entropy. Equation (1) can be rewritten as (2) and leads to definition 1 [14] [13]. …”