Microprocessor system design environment based on an object-oriented blackboard framework

How to develop a computer aided design (CAD) environment for designing microprocessor systems at the system-level specification is an interesting and important topic. It relates to issues including specification analysis, component selection, logic synthesis, timing analysis, layout, simulation, control program generation, etc. Furthermore, many of these issues are heavily dependent on heuristic knowledge. The algorithmic approach, therefore, may not be an adequate solution. Conventional expert system structures also can not satisfy all the requirements for such topics. We need a novel framework which can support integration of knowledge sources and multiple-paradigm implementation. In this paper, we propose an improved blackboard framework, called the object-oriented blackboard framework (OOBF), for this purpose. OOBF combines the advantages of an object-oriented paradigm and blackboard framework, so that the characteristics of high openness, high extensibility, and high efficiency are kept. Also, it is suitable for running in a concurrent or distributed environment. We apply OOBF to develop an object-oriented knowledge base system for microprocessor system design. This system includes several object-oriented knowledge sources, an object-oriented device library, and an open framework for CAD software integration.