A CAD system for the construction and VLSI implementation of Cellular Automata algorithms using VHDL

Abstract

Cellular Automata (CAs) are models of physical systems where space and time are discrete and interactions are only local. CAs are very effective in simulating physical systems and solving scientific problems, because they can capture the essential features of systems in which global behaviour arises from the collective effect of simple components which interact locally. CAs have been applied successfully to the simulation of several physical systems and processes, and have been extensively used as a very large-scale integrated (VLSI) architecture. We present a CAD system that builds a bridge between CAs as models of physical systems and processes, and CAs as a VLSI architecture. The inputs to our CAD system are the CA dimensionality, lattice size, local rule, and the initial and boundary conditions imposed by the particular problem. Our system produces as output the corresponding VHDL code, which leads to VLSI implementation of the CA algorithm. No prior knowledge of VHDL is required by the user. We have tested our CAD system using well-known one- and two-dimensional CAs, namely the game of life and the rule 90 CAs. The VHDL code produced in all these cases has been used for the automated design of the corresponding VLSI system, using a commercial VLSI CAD system. Simulations of the operation of these VLSI systems showed that the corresponding CA has been successfully implemented into hardware.