On the Information Engine of Circuit Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces an information engine perspective to digital circuit synthesis, proposing new information measures and analyzing the flow and conservation of information throughout the design process.

Contribution

It presents a novel framework applying information theory to circuit synthesis, including new measures and fundamental properties of information flow.

Findings

Formulation of conservation law of information flow

Introduction of new information measures for synthesis

Analysis of information equilibrium in circuit design

Abstract

This paper addresses a new approach to find a spectrum of information measures for the process of digital circuit synthesis. We consider the problem from the information engine point of view. The circuit synthesis as a whole and different steps of the design process (an example of decision diagram is given) are presented via such measurements as entropy, logical work and information vitality. We also introduce new information measures to provide better estimates of synthesis criteria. We show that the basic properties of information engine, such as the conservation law of information flow and the equilibrium law of information can be formulated.