@inproceedings{10.1145/3559400.3561997,
author = {Lin, Richard and Ramesh, Rohit and Dutta, Prabal and Hartmann, Bjoern and Mehta, Ankur},
title = {Computational Support for Multiplicity in Hierarchical Electronics Design},
year = {2022},
isbn = {9781450398725},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3559400.3561997},
doi = {10.1145/3559400.3561997},
abstract = {While hierarchical design promises design process improvements through structures that better enable computational design, the basic model of blocks, ports, and connections lacks support for multiplicity – dealing with repeated instances of objects. In this work, we explore two extensions of that basic model to support two types of multiplicity, specifically in the context of board-level electronics where this is a common pattern. First, to support blocks that can be arbitrarily scalable across number of devices – e.g., an n-element LED array generator – we extend the existing fixed port interfaces for blocks with port arrays that can have dynamic width with automatic propagation through connections. Second, to support mapping abstract blocks in a design onto physical multipack devices – e.g., combining resistors across the design into a single quad-pack resistor device to optimize for fabrication – we introduce cross-hierarchy packing including support for shared pins. For both of these constructs, we describe the user-facing abstractions, internal representations, and compiler implementation, then demonstrate their end-to-end use through three example designs that we have fabricated and tested.},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication},
articleno = {1},
numpages = {11},
keywords = {hierarchical design, multipack devices, port arrays, electronics design},
location = {Seattle, WA, USA},
series = {SCF '22}
}