Interactive Evolutionary CAD System for MEMS Layout Synthesis

We propose an interactive layout synthesis CAD tool. It allows a human user to graphically manipulate and simulate a layout, but also has the ability to apply two simple evolutionary synthesis methods: a simple random walk function and simulated annealing. These methods are capable of optimizing very complex functions difficult for a human to tune by hand. Additionally the tool incorporates the ability to reduce the dimension of the search space via variable locking, contributing to both focused search and faster convergence to a desired performance. The CAD tool has been written with flexibility in mind, allowing the application to a wide range of layout synthesis problems. In this paper its effectiveness is demonstrated on a MEMS vibratory rate gyroscope example.