LEAP: A Learning Apprentice for VLSI Design

Abstract

It is by now well recognized that a major impediment to developing knowledge-based systems is the knowledge-acquisition bottleneck: The task of building up a complete enough and correct enough knowledge base to provide high-level performance. This chapter proposes a new class of knowledge-based systems designed to address this knowledge-acquisition bottleneck by incorporating a learning component to acquire new knowledge through experience. In particular, we define learning apprentice systems as the class of interactive, knowledge-based consultants that directly assimilate new knowledge by observing and analyzing the problem-solving steps contributed by their users through their normal use of the system. This chapter describes a specific learning apprentice system, called LEAP, which is currently being developed in the domain of VLSI design. We also discuss design issues for learning apprentice systems more generally, as well as restrictions on the generality of our current approach.