Prolog at Berkeley

An overview is given of the Aquarius project at Berkeley, which is centered on the high-performance execution of logic programs in general and Prolog in particular. Its goal is to determine how a very large improvement in performance can be achieved in a machine specialized to solve difficult problems characterized by symbolic and numerical calculations, both within a search space. The particular problem domain of this type that is of current concern is design automation of single VLSI chip microprocessors. The processors support Prolog execution and the design tools are written in Prolog, as are the high-level specifications of the processors. Thus, high-performance processors are being developed in VLSI to help execute the design automation tools that are being used to help design these same processors.<>