The role of learning in logic synthesis

Abstract

Irvine, C A 92717 A B S T R A C TThe goal of logic synthesis is to obtain high-quality designs from specifications. Current approaches to logic synthesis often tradeoff design quality for technology independence. In this paper, we present a model of logic synthesis that uses technology-specific design rules and extends rule-based search to functional decomposition and technology mapping. While this model improves design quality by taking advantage of the target technology, it is not robust to technology changes. To improve robustness, we augment the model with two learning components: one for acquiring rules that make use of physical cells in a technology library, and another for acquiring rules that make use of appropriate design styles. These components are related to work in learning of macrooperators and explanation-based learning.