This research is on a transformational synthesis in which a naive implementation of a control specification is transformed into one that better meets the requirements of the overall design. Two new ideas are being explored. One is to use a search strategy similar to that used by production systems, but which is more efficient because in the search rules it hides much of the detail of the underlying implementation. This gives the flexibility and modularity of the rule-based approach while avoiding the performance problems. The other idea is to build feed back into the system so that decisions about the design of the controller can be evaluated in terms of their impact on the overall design and refined accordingly. Ideas generated in the research are being experimented with in a testbed, a synthesis system that goes from abstract specification to layout, or pseudo-layout. Evaluation of integrating the controller designer into a larger synthesis system is being made.
