The ADAM Advanced Design Automation System: Overview, Planner and Natural Language Interface

This paper describes ADAM, an integrated Advanced Design AutoMation system, with focus on the knowledge-based synthesis subsystem. Working parts of this subsystem include a number of design activities and utilities, and a unified, multidimensional, hierarchical design representation. Two aspects of the synthesis subsystem are described in detail: the design planner and the natural language interface. The planner builds a plan for synthesis and analysis activities, drawing inferences from a knowledge base represented by a semantic net. The natural language interface accepts system-level behavioral specifications. Both of these packages are currently being implemented.