Toward evolvable hardware chips: Experiments with a programmable transistor array

Evolvable hardware is reconfigurable hardware that self-configures under the control of an evolutionary algorithm. The search for a hardware configuration can be performed using software models or, faster and more accurate, directly, in reconfigurable hardware. Several experiments have demonstrated the possibility to automatically synthesize both digital and analog circuits. The paper introduces an approach to automated synthesis of CMOS circuits, based on evolution on a programmable transistor array (PTA). The approach is illustrated with a software experiment showing evolutionary synthesis of a circuit with a desired DC characteristic. A hardware implementation of a test PTA chip is then described, and the same evolutionary experiment is performed on the chip demonstrating circuit synthesis/self-configuration directly in hardware