On-chip intrinsic evolution methodology for sequential logic circuit design

This paper focuses on the application of Virtual Reconfigurable Circuit (VRC) design methodology and intrinsic evolution for the design of small sequential circuits and their implementation on a single programmable chip with an embedded hardcore processor. The evolutionary algorithm is developed in software that runs on the embedded processor. Fitness function is calculated using hardware architecture and is used to guide the evolution process. This new method is applied to the development of a 3-bit sequence detector and the evolved architecture is implemented on a Xilinx^trade Virtex-II pro device. Simulations were run on the evolved architecture and on the same circuit designed using conventional Hardware Descriptive Language (HDL). Both designs showed the same functional behavior. Synthesis results show that the new method can be used in successfully implementing small sequential circuits on a reconfigurable hardware environment.