Nautilus: Fast automated IP design space search using guided genetic algorithms

Today's offerings of parameterized hardware IP generators permit very high degrees of performance and implementation customization. Nevertheless, it is ultimately still left to the IP users to set IP parameters to achieve the desired tuning effects. For the average IP user, the knowledge and effort required to navigate a complex IP's design space can significantly offset the productivity gain from using the IP. This paper presents an approach that builds into an IP generator an extended genetic algorithm (GA) to perform automatic IP parameter tuning. In particular, we propose extensions that allow IP authors to embed pertinent designer knowledge to improve GA performance. In the context of several IP generators, our evaluations show that (1) GA is an effective solution to this problem and (2) our modified IP author guided GA can reach the same quality of results up to an order of magnitude faster compared to the basic GA.