AUTHORS: Nikitas J. Dimopoulos, Kin F. Li, Eric G. Manning, 
	 Ben Huber, Marco A. Escalante, Dongni Li, 
	 and David Caughey
	 
TITLE:   DAME: An Expert Microprocessor-Based-Systems-Designers. 
	 An Overview and Status Report

IN: 	Proceedings of the 1991 IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on 
	Communications, Computers and Signal Processing, Victoria, 
	Canada, May 9-10, 1991, pp. 388-391.      



ABSTRACT

DAME (Design Automation of Microprocessor-based systems, using an 
Expert system approach) is an expert system capable of configuring 
and designing a customized microprocessor system from original 
specifications. We have postulated that such an expert system, can be 
easily constructed, since most of the interfaces used by the various 
microprocessors and related peripherals are standardized. Thus, once 
the gross structure of the design and the modules comprising it have 
been chosen, their interconnection is fairly straight-forward. Our 
investigation into the modelling of signal behavior confirmed this 
premise.
In this work, we present the component library and knowledge base in DAME.
A notation is developed to allow the complete specification and the 
modelling of the static and temporal behaviors of signals found in these 
component. Knowledge representation using frames in a hierarchical 
structure is presented, together with some typical rules used for the 
design process. Examples of the hierarchy, frames, and rules to design 
interfaces between microprocessor and memory components are illustrated.