JP2692583B2 - Design system cooperation method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to, for example, a cooperative system of an automatic operation system for automatically issuing a command to a CAD system which issues various commands to design a VLSI circuit and synthesizes the command according to a request. Regarding

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when commands are automatically issued to automatically operate a CAD system, for example, as shown in FIG.
(1) The design status observing means observes partial information during the design from the design system to be operated, and (2) the next processing deciding means decides a command to be issued next using the observation result. (3) The design system control method which repeats the procedure of the processing application means issuing a command to the design system has been adopted.

Conventionally, when sufficient design results cannot be expected with one design system, a plurality of the design systems are prepared and, for example, as shown in FIGS. A plurality of operation command sequences expected to be generated are enumerated, or all possible operation command sequences are enumerated. (2) Different command sequences are tried in parallel by a plurality of design systems, and (3) the design system A parallel automatic design method that obtains all the design results and automatically selects the best result if possible, such as automatically selecting the best result from the results obtained by operating each design system independently Can be considered.

[0004]

However, in the case of a conventional system in which a plurality of design systems are operated and designed in response to a problem request in which a single design system cannot be expected to obtain a sufficient design result, By operating each design system independently and obtaining each design result, there is no need to abandon a design that is clear from the partial information during the design that a better result is not expected than other designs. However, there are drawbacks in that a plurality of design systems that can be started cannot be used effectively.

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In the design system cooperation method, the following two configuration methods can be considered.

The design system cooperation method according to the first aspect of the present invention comprises a design system, a communication transmission means for the automatic operation agents to communicate with each other, operation and observation of the design system, and a communication transmission means via the communication transmission means. It is characterized by having an automatic operation agent that transmits and receives the processing applied to the design system in operation and the observed design status to and from another automatic operation agent.

A design system cooperation method of the second invention is based on a design system, a design status observing means for observing the status of the design system, an observation result of the design status observing means, and a notification from an inter-agent communication means. Next processing determining means for determining processing, processing applying means for operating the design system based on processing determined by the next processing determining means, information provided from the design status observing means and the processing applying means. It is characterized by having an inter-agent communication means for appropriately notifying other inter-agent communication means and receiving a notification from the other inter-agent communication means, and a communication transmission means for the inter-agent communication means to communicate. .

[0008]

According to the design system cooperation method, the inter-agent communication means notifies the other automatic operation agent of the observation result from the design status observation means, and the inter-agent communication means notifies the observation result of the design status of the other automatic operation agent. By receiving by, it becomes possible to compare the own design with the design of other agents.

Based on the comparison, if it can be inferred that another agent design may be better than its own design, the design is discarded in the middle and the design system and the automatic operation agent are It becomes possible to utilize for effective processing.

In addition, a notification from the processing application means is sent to another automatic operation agent by the inter-agent communication means, and a process applied by the other automatic operation agent is received by the inter-agent communication means. Can be prevented from being centrally managed by one automatic operation system, thereby avoiding duplication of command strings for operating each design system.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 illustrates a design system cooperation method of the present invention .
It is a reference drawing for clarifying. The design system cooperation method in the configuration of FIG. 1 is the design system (101, 103).
And the communication transmission means 105 for the automatic operation agents (102, 104) to communicate with each other, and the operation and observation of the design system (101, 103), and other automatic operation via the communication transmission means 105. An automatic operation agent (10) that transmits / receives to / from the agent (104, 102) processing applied to the operating design system (101, 103) and observed design status.
2, 104).

As shown in FIG. 1, the automatic operation agent 10
An embodiment will be described by taking as an example a case where the second operation operates the design system 101 and the automatic operation agent 104 operates the design system 103. The greatest feature of the design system cooperation method of the present invention is that the appropriate operation is sequentially determined for the operation target based on the information in the middle of design of the operation target, and
The automatic operation means having the function of issuing, while transmitting the information during the design of the operation target obtained by the automatic operation means and the operation issued to the operation target by the automatic operation means to other automatic operation agents one by one, A communication function for receiving information and an operation in the middle of design from another operation agent has been added to perform cooperation between automatic operation agents. Therefore, in the following embodiments, the operation in the communication function, which is the greatest feature, will be mainly described. In each example, the same design problem is handled by using a plurality of design systems.

Example 1 The operation when the same design input is given to the design systems 101 and 103 and the command 1 and the command 2 exist in the next executable command group will be described.

(1-1) Automatic operation agent 102
Sends a command 1 as the first operation of the design system 101 based on a given design problem and notifies the other automatic operation agent of the issuance of the command 1 based on the given design problem. .

(1-2) Automatic operation agent 104
Is a command 1 issuance notification from the automatic operation agent 102, the design system is based on the received command 1 issuance notification and the given design problem.
As the first operation of 103 , the command 2 is issued, and at the same time, the issuance of the command 2 is notified to other automatic operation agents.

Example 2 After the same design input is given to the design systems 101 and 103, the automatic operation agent 1
An operation in the case where the operation sequences of 02 and 104 are the same, and the next executable command group includes Command 3 and Command 4 will be described.

(2-1) Automatic operation agent 102
Issues a command 3 as a subsequent operation to the design system 101 because there is no notification of a subsequent operation from the automatic operation agent 104, and simultaneously issues a command 3 to another automatic operation agent as a notification of the subsequent operation in the automatic design agent 102. Notification of issuance of

(2-2) Automatic operation agent 104
Issued a command 4 as a subsequent operation to the design system 103 based on the received notification of the command 3 and the given design problem, because the automatic operation agent 102 At the same time, as a notification of a subsequent operation in the automatic operation agent 104, the other automatic operation agents are notified of the issuance of the command 4.

Example 3 After the same design input is given to the design systems 101 and 103, the automatic operation agent 1
The operation when 02 and 104 are proceeding with the operation will be described.

(3-1) At a certain design stage, the automatic operation agent 102 notifies other automatic operation agents of information on the design of the design system 101 during the design.

(3-2) When the operation of the automatic operation agent 104 has proceeded to the design stage which can be compared with the certain point in time, the information received during the design from the automatic operation agent 102 and the design of the design system 103 Compare information on the way.

(3-3) From the above comparison, even if the design of the design system 101 is advanced in the future, the design system 103
If it is clearly anticipated that a better result is not expected than the design of the automation agent, the automation agent 104 discards the previous design and accepts a request from another automation operation agent, for example, to thereby obtain another more effective result. Attempt such an operation sequence.

The effects of the present invention in the above examples will be summarized. As in Examples 1 and 2, duplication of command strings for operating each design system can be avoided. If it becomes clear that the design of another agent is better than its own design as in Example 3, the design can be discarded halfway and another design can be attempted.

FIG . 2 shows the design system cooperation method of the present invention.
It is explanatory drawing which shows a specific Example.

Referring to FIG. 2, the design system coordination system of this embodiment includes a design system 201 and the design system 20.
Design status observing means 202 for observing the situation 1; next processing deciding means 203 for deciding the processing based on the observation result of the design situation observing means 202 and the notification from the inter-agent communication means 205; A process application unit 204 for operating the design system 201 based on the process determined by the process 203;
And an inter-agent communication unit 205 for notifying the information provided from the processing application unit 204 to another inter-agent communication unit as appropriate and receiving a notification from the other inter-agent communication unit.
05 has a communication transmitting means 206 for communication.

FIG. 6 is an example of an operation flow of the process determining procedure of the next process determining means 203 of the design system cooperation method of the present invention . In the design end judgment 601, the end of the design is judged, and in the case of the end state, the operation is ended. Next, the design status 602 is the design status observing means 202 of FIG.
This is the data obtained. Other agent design situation 6
03 is data obtained by the inter-agent communication means 205 of FIG. A design status comparison 604 is performed using the design status and the other agent design status. If it is determined that the self- design status is worse than the other-agent design status, the self-design discard 605 is performed, and then the other-design load 606 is performed from the other-agent design status 603. In a next process candidate group creation 607, an applicable command group is created, and a next process candidate group 608 is created. Most suitable co the following process selection 609 by using the following process candidate group
Select a mand . In the selection process , in order to avoid duplicate execution of commands already executed by other agents,
Duplication of commands is avoided by using the other agent design history 610 and the self-design history 611 obtained through the inter-agent communication means 205 . Selection processing notification 612
Thus, communication of the selected command to another agent and addition of a self-design history are performed. Finally, select processing application 6
By 13 the command application is requested to the processing application means 204 of FIG. 2, and the process returns to the design end determination 601.

The operation in FIG. 2 will be described as a specific example. In the following example, it is assumed that the same design problem is given to both the design system 201 and the design system operated by another agent with which the inter-agent communication unit 205 communicates.

When a design problem is given to the design system 201, the design situation observing means 202 sends, for example, several commands for reporting feature values of the design object to the design system 2.
Observe the design status, for example, by issuing it at 01. For example, if the design system 201 is a logic synthesis system, the characteristic values of the design target include an area value and a delay value of a circuit under design. The observed design status is notified to the next process determining means 203 and the inter-agent communication means 205.
Inter-agent communication means 20 receiving the design situation
Reference numeral 5 denotes a design situation in the design system operated by the user, which is transmitted to another inter-agent communication means through the communication transmission means 206. Conversely, when the agent-to-agent communication means 205 is notified from another agent via the communication means 206 of the design status in the design system operated by another agent, the agent-to-agent communication means 205 receives the information. The design status that has been added is added to the other agent design status 603 used in the process of the next process determining means 203 as needed.

The next processing determining means 203, having received the design situation, performs processing according to the flow of FIG. In FIG. 6, the design status is 602. First, the next processing determination unit 203 determines the design system 2 based on the design status notified from the design status observation unit 202, for example.
It is determined whether the operation No. 01 is to be ended (601). For example, if the design system 201 is a logic synthesis system, the process is terminated when the delay value of the circuit under design among the feature values of the design object satisfies the requirements given in the design problem.

If the design should not be completed, the next processing determining means 203 compares its own design situation 602 with another agent design situation 603 transmitted from another agent via the inter-agent communication means 205. (6
04). Since the other agent design situation 603 may store the design situation of one or more agents, the comparison 604 between the design situations is a one-to-one or one-to-many comparison. . For example, if the design system 201 is a logic synthesis system and the satisfaction request given in the design problem is a constraint on the delay value of the circuit, the comparison 604 of the quality of the design situation is performed. Among all situations, a design situation with the smallest delay value to be improved until the constraint is satisfied is set as a good design situation.

If it is determined from the comparison of the design status 604 that there is a design status of another agent which is superior to the design status of the own agent, the design of the own agent is discarded (605), and the best is obtained in the comparison 604 of the design status. The design state of the agent in the determined design state is loaded and set as its own design state (606). For example, if the design system 201 is a logic synthesis system in which the design system 201 is designed to store all intermediate states of a design circuit in a file every time a command is given, the design circuit intermediate state stored as the file By loading and so on.

Based on the comparison 604 of the design states, it is determined that there is no design state of another agent that is superior to the design state of the own agent, and the best design state is loaded (6).
06) After that, a next process candidate group 608 in which the next process candidates to be issued to the design system 201 are arranged in an appropriate order is created based on, for example, the own design situation 602 (607). As the creation 607 of the next processing candidate group 608, for example, if the design system 201 is a logic synthesis system and the satisfaction request given in the design problem is a constraint on the delay value of the circuit, data collected in advance is also used. With respect to all commands that can be issued to the design system 201, the effect of delay value improvement when each command is applied to its own design situation 602 is predicted, and the predicted value is set for each command. A command group having a predicted value that satisfies the delay value constraint, the predicted values are arranged in descending order of a margin with respect to the delay value constraint, and further, a command group having a predicted value that does not satisfy the delay value constraint, The predicted values are arranged in ascending order of the value to be improved until the delay value constraint is satisfied.

For example, in the above-described example of the logic synthesis system, the delay value constraint is further given that “the maximum delay value at the input / output of the design circuit is 50 ms or less”, and the design system 201
It is assumed that there are four commands, Command 1, Command 2, Command 3, and Command 4, which can be issued to the. Further, the prediction based on the data collected in advance shows that the maximum delay prediction value of the design circuit when the command 1 is applied is 20 ms and the maximum delay of the design circuit when the command 2 is applied to the own design situation. Predicted value is 40ms, command 3
The maximum delay prediction value of the design circuit when applying
s, the maximum delay prediction value of the design circuit when the command 4 is applied is 80 ms. Command 1 and command 2 are a group of commands having a predicted value that satisfies the delay value constraint, and commands 3 and 4 are a group of commands having a predicted value that does not satisfy the delay value constraint. The margin of the predicted value 20 ms of the command 1 for the delay value constraint “50 ms or less” is 30 ms, and the margin of the predicted value 40 ms of the command 2 for the delay value constraint “50 ms or less” is 10 ms. The head of the processing candidate group 608 is command 1 and the second is command 2. The delay value to be improved until the predicted value 60 ms of the command 3 satisfies the delay value constraint “50 ms or less” is 10 ms, and the predicted value 8 of the command 4 is 8 ms.
Since the delay value to be improved until 0 ms satisfies the delay constraint “50 ms or less” is 30 ms, the third in the next processing candidate group 608 is the command 3 and the fourth is the command 4.

After the creation 607 of the next processing candidate group 608,
The created next process candidate group 608 and the process application unit 20
4 using its own design history 611 such as a command issued to its own design system 201 and another agent design history 610 transmitted from another agent via the inter-agent communication means 205. The next candidate that is different from the design history of any other agent and is the best is selected (609). The next process selection 609 will be described as a specific example using the same example of the logic synthesis system as described above. For example, the next processing candidate group 608 is in the order of command 1, command 2, command 3, and command 4, and its own design history 611 is command 10, command 11, and command 12, and the design history of another agent. In 610, there are design histories of three agents, Agent 1, Agent 2, and Agent 3.
Command 10, Command 11, Command 12, Command 1, and the design history of Agent 2 is Command 1
0, command 11, command 12, command 2, and when the design history of the agent 3 is command 10, command 11, command 12, command 3,
From the processing of the next processing candidate group creation 607, the next processing candidate group 60
Since command 1 which is the first process of No. 8 is predicted to be optimal among commands that can be issued, the next process selection 609 indicates
First, it is assumed that the command 1 is issued.
The own design history 611 indicates that the command 10 and the command 1
Therefore, if the command 1 is further added to the history, the command 10, the command 11, the command 12, the command 1, and the command 1 are the design histories of the agent 1 in the design history 610 of the other agent. ,
Since the design history is the same as that described above, the command 1 is not selected as the next process. Next, even if it is assumed that the second appropriate command 2 is issued, the own design history matches the design history of the agent 2, the command 10, the command 11, the command 12, and the command 2. 2 is not selected as the next process. Further, similarly, the selection of the command 3 is also discarded, and if the command 4 is considered to be the next process, the command 4 is selected as the next process because it does not overlap with the design history of another agent.

In the specific example of the selection of the next process, the next process is selected with the highest priority given not to overlap with the design history of another agent.
If the satisfaction requirement given during a design problem such as a delay value constraint is significantly improved, even if the process overlaps with the design history of another agent, the next process is selected as the next process. Or if the next process is selected as the next process selection criterion that takes into account both "duplication with the design history of other agents" and "degree of improvement in solution request",
Among the processing that overlaps with the design history of other agents, the processing that is predicted to have a larger number of processing candidate groups that can be applied next will ignore the duplication and select the more appropriate processing as the next processing. Various next process selection criteria, such as a process selection standard, can be considered.

Next processing selection processing 6 of next processing determining means 203
The next process selected in 09 is notified to the process application unit 204.

Processing application means 20 receiving the next processing
No. 4 notifies the next processing to the inter-agent communication means 205 and adds it to the self-design history 611 used by the next processing determination means 203 (612). Further, the next process is applied to the design system 201 (613).

The inter-agent communication means 205 which has received the next processing from the processing application means 204 performs another processing through the communication transmission means 206 as the next processing applied to the design system operated by itself. Inform the agent's inter-agent communication means. When the agent-to-agent communication means 205 is notified of the next process applied to the design system operated by the other agent from another agent via the communication transmission means 206, the agent-to-agent communication means 205 , The next processing applied by the other agent, and
3 is added to the other agent design history 610 used.

The notification of the next process to the agent-to-agent communication unit 205 is performed by the process application unit 204. Instead, the next process determination unit 203 notifies the process application unit 204 of the determined next process. , May be notified to the inter-agent communication means 205. Further, in the above specific example, every time one process is applied to the design system 201, the processing status of the design system 301 is observed, the observation result is notified to another agent, and based on the notification from the other agent. The process of determining the next process and notifying the determined next process to other agents was repeated, but after applying the process to the design system 201 a plurality of times,
The observation result and the next process may be notified to another agent, or the next process may be determined in consideration of the notification from the other agent.

[0040]

As described above, according to the design system cooperation method of the present invention, 1. Each automatic operation agent exchanges partial information in the course of design with each other, so that the designs can be compared with each other. 2. By comparing the designs, it is possible to detect a design for which it is clear that a better result than the other designs cannot be expected, and to perform an operation of discarding the design on the way. 3. By exchanging operations performed on the design systems by the respective automatic operation agents, it is possible to avoid duplication of the operation sequence of each design system distributed on each machine.

Therefore, it is possible to effectively utilize the plurality of design systems that can be activated.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 illustrates a design system cooperation method of the present invention .
FIG.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an embodiment of a design system cooperation system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a configuration example of a design system control method according to the related art.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration example of a parallel automatic design method according to the related art.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration example of a parallel automatic design method according to the related art.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an embodiment of a processing flow in the design system cooperation system of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

101, 103, 201, 304, 405, 406, 4
07, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508 Design system 102, 104 Automatic operation agent 105, 206 Communication transmitting means 202, 301 Design status observing means 203, 302 Next process determining means 204, 303 Process applying means 205 Agent communication means 401, 501 All processing procedure creating means 402 Appropriate processing procedure selecting means 403, 502 Processing procedure assigning means 404, 503 Best solution selecting means 601 Design end judgment 602 Design status 603 Other agent design status 604 Design status comparison 605 Self-design discard 606 Other Design load 607 Next processing candidate group creation 608 Next processing candidate group 609 Next processing selection 610 Other agent design history 611 Self-design history 612 Selection processing notification 613 Selection processing operation

Continuation of the front page (56) References 1992 National Conference of AI Society, pp. 693-696 Mototsugu Otsubo et al., "Cooperative Method Based on Comparison of Problem Domain Models" 1993, AI Conference, pp. 243-246 Motohide Otsubo et al. "Coordination Method of Agents with Reversible Reasoning Method"

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A design system, a design status observing means for observing the status of the design system, and a next processing determining means for deciding processing based on an observation result of the design status observing means and a notification from an inter-agent communication means. And a processing application means for operating the design system based on the processing determined by the next processing determination means, and appropriately notifies other inter-agent communication means of the information provided from the design status observation means and the processing application means. At the same time, there is provided an inter-agent communication means for receiving a notification from another inter-agent communication means, and a communication transmission means for the inter-agent communication means to communicate with each other.