Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: landman@hanami.eng.sun.com (Howard A. Landman x61391) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Simulations of Nanotech Tools Message-ID: Date: 20 Nov 89 20:25:55 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 28 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu >In article landman@hanami.eng.sun.com (Howard A. Landman x61391) writes: >>Very little industrial-strength CAD is done using AI-based >>tools today, and the fraction of AI in a field like that tends to *decrease* >>as the field matures. In article honavar@goat.cs.wisc.edu (Vasant Honavar) writes: > It is perhaps more accurate to say that as the field matures, > what used to be called "AI" once tends integrated into > standard computer programming practice. This has happened with > expert systems, for example. I recognize that this happens, but that's not what I'm not talking about. Generic techniques such as AI are best when you don't really understand the problem you're trying to solve. Once you understand it well, you typically spend most of your execution time in a tight loop executing a well defined algorithm. This is true of simulation, timing analysis, finite-element analysis, geometric rule checking, etc., etc. Applying AI to these problems makes about as much sense as applying AI to computational fluid dynamics or interactive 3-D graphics; it's like using a coping saw to rip plywood. Where AI may be able to help is in the development of new algorithms, and in high-level design exploration. But I really doubt that the bulk of actual CAD/DA computation will be spent on "AI" programs. Howard A. Landman landman%hanami@eng.sun.com