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Adrian Stoica Ricardo S. Zebulum Xin Guo* Didier Keymeulen M. I. Ferguson Vu Duong

Taking evolutionary circuit design from experimentation to implementation: some useful techniques and a silicon demonstration. Adrian Stoica Ricardo S. Zebulum Xin Guo* Didier Keymeulen M. I. Ferguson Vu Duong. Outline.

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Adrian Stoica Ricardo S. Zebulum Xin Guo* Didier Keymeulen M. I. Ferguson Vu Duong

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  1. Taking evolutionary circuit design from experimentation to implementation: some useful techniques and a silicon demonstration Adrian Stoica Ricardo S. Zebulum Xin Guo* Didier Keymeulen M. I. Ferguson Vu Duong

  2. Outline • Multi-function NAND/NOR circuit controlled by the power supply voltage (Vdd); • Programmable Logic Cells. • New methods to ensure that circuits produced by evolution can be fabricated; • The circuit was fabricated in a 0.5-micron CMOS technology and silicon tests showed good correspondence with the simulations.

  3. Methods used in evolutionary design-for-fabrication • Need for comprehensive testing to ensure that evolved solutions cover the intended operational space; • Opposing to conventional design, no assumptions on the circuits’ performance outside the points tested during evolution can be reliably made.

  4. Methods used in evolutionary design-for-fabrication • Candidate logic circuits were tested in transient analysisfor all possible transitions of combinations of input levels; • For example, a circuit may respond well as an AND gate to input combinations of levels 0-0, 0-1, 1-0, 1-1. However, it may have a long switching time when inputs 1-1 following 0-0 - and not 1-0 as above, which is not tested in the simple scheme; • Increased transient analysis: seven input configuration cases opposed to four.

  5. Methods used in evolutionary design-for-fabrication • Loading problem: preliminary experiments showed that evolved circuits were not able to drive similar circuits; • Problem: Input/Output impedance of circuit to be evolved is not known in advance; • Use of domain knowledge may help: in the case of logic gates we constrain the circuit inputs to connect only to transistor gate terminals, opposed to source or drain: increase input resistive impedance.

  6. Methods used in evolutionary design-for-fabrication • Timescale Problem: preliminary evolved logic gates changed their behavior over a "frequency range“, i.e. different responses when tested with slow/DC signals and faster input changing signals; • Testing in micro-seconds timescale → Transient solutions; • Testing in seconds timescale → Slow gates; • Solution: extend the transient analysis duration to avoid transient solutions while keeping the transient analysis step small enough to assess the gate speed.

  7. Evolved Circuit • GA parameters: Population of 40 Individuals running for 400 generations

  8. Circuit Layout

  9. Circuit Response In1 In2 Out In1 In2 Out Simulation Silicon

  10. Remarks • Stable for  10% variations of Vdd and for temperatures –20oC and 200oC; • Evolution obtained a creative novel topology more compact than what has been achieved by multiplexing a NAND and a NOR gate (conventional solution using a standard digital library with external voltage control). • No conventional design is available with the logic function controlled by Vdd; • Design a 6-transistor NAND/NOR gate controlled by Vdd is a complex task for a human designer; • To be published in the IEE computing/digital techniques journal on evolvable hardware. To be published in 2004. Andy Tyrrell (editor), London, England.

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