Natural-Language Interface for CAD: A First Step

Though the ubiquity of CAD tools in state-of-the-art VLSI design has forced the issue of user interfaces for CAD to prominence, one type of user interface that has not been investigated hitherto is the natural-language interface. The CAD domain is substantially more complex than the domains for which previous natural-language interfaces have been built. This implies that a natural-language interface for CAD cannot be based on previous approaches to language understanding; a new approach is required. Our approach emphasizes flexibility, parallelism, and redundancy, and is embodied in an interface called Cleopatra. Ultimately, Cleopatra will be an interface for an “integrated design environment.” As a first step towards that goal, but also as a useful tool in its own right, Cleopatra currently deals with circuit-simulation post-processing.