URANOS - Analysis Methods for the Design of Application-Robust, Nanoelectronic Systems

In the future, integrated circuits will become tinier and more powerful. On the one hand this results in new application areas for the chip industry but on the other hand the development of new chips will become more and more complex. In highly flexible domains like the chip design situations occur where ongoing workflows need to be changed. For instance, when a certain algorithm does not work for a new, smaller chip technology the ongoing chip design process has to be adapted. Such a situation can not be handled by traditional workflow systems. The URANOS research team of the University of Trier explores and improves the chip design process by developing novel methods and tools of agile workflow technology for long-term workflows.

Consortium

The consortium consists of eight partners:

Funding

The URANOS project is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant number 01M3075 from Juli 2005 to June 2008.

Agile Workflow Technology

Agile workflow technology is a recent research area that deals with the structural adaptation of ongoing workflows. The interleaving of build-time and run-time provides novel requirements for both the workflow modelling language and the workflow enactment service. The URANOS research team at the University of Trier focuses on novel methods and tools for agile workflow technology including:

  • Support of huge, agile process models with thousands of tasks.
  • Facilitating that some parts of a workflow continue with the execution of tasks while other parts are being modified.
  • Late-modelling and hierarchical decomposition of workflows.
  • Change reuse: how former experience from the adaptation of workflows can be applied for the adaptation of an ongoing workflow.
  • User friendly tools for the modelling, adaption, and monitoring of agile workflows.

Tools and Demos

We developed a novel, agile workflow system for long-term processes that is part of the overall Framework CAKE (Collaborative Agile Knowledge Engine).

We invite you to watch a demonstrator movie that shows several of our tools and their importance for the chip design. movie

Research Team

The URANOS research team of the University of Trier consists of the following members:

  • Prof. Dr. Ralph Bergmann
  • Dr. Mirjam Minor
  • Dipl.-Wirt.-Inform. Daniel Schmalen
  • Sebastian Görg (Student Researcher)
  • Stephan Kempin (Student Researcher)
  • Andreas Marx (Student Researcher)
  • Stefan Ollinger (Student Researcher)
  • Jakob Weidlich (Student Researcher)

Former student researchers who have contributed to the results are Jie Sun, Dimitrij Zub, Steffen Salewski, Özhan Özbek, and Rouven Thimm.

Publications

2008

  • Mirjam Minor, Alexander Tartakovski, Daniel Schmalen, and Ralph Bergmann. Agile Workflow Technology and Case-Based Change Reuse for Long-Term Processes . International Journal of Intelligent Information Technologies , 4(1):80-98, 2008.
  • Mirjam Minor, Daniel Schmalen, and Ralph Bergmann. XML-based Representation of Agile Workflows. In Martin Bichler, Thomas Hess, Helmut Krcmar, Ulrike Lechner, Florian Matthes, Arnold Picot, Benjamin Speitkamp, and Petra Wolf, editors, Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2008, pages 439-440, 2008, GITO-Verlag Berlin.

2007

  • Mirjam Minor, Alexander Tartakovski, and Ralph Bergmann. Representation and Structure-based Similarity Assessment for Agile Workflows. In Rosina O. Weber, and Michael M. Richter, editors, Case-Based Reasoning Research and Development, 7th International Conference on Case-Based Reasoning, ICCBR 2007, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, August 2007, Proceedings, LNCS 4626, pages 224 - 238, 2007, Springer.
  • Mirjam Minor, Alexander Tartakovski, and Ralph Bergmann. Representation and Structure-based Similarity Assessment for Agile Workflows (Resubmission). In Alexander Hinneburg, editor, LWA 2007 Lernen - Wissen - Adaption, 24.-26.09.2007 in Halle, page 341, 2007, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.
  • Mirjam Minor, Daniel Schmalen, and Andreas Koldehoff. The Role of Context Models in Association with Flexible Design Processes. In David C. Wilson, and Deepak Khemani, editors, Workshop-Proceedings ICCBR'07, pages 185 - 190, 2007.
  • Mirjam Minor, Daniel Schmalen, Andreas Koldehoff, and Ralph Bergmann. Structural adaptation of workflows supported by a suspension mechanism and by case-based reasoning. In Sumitra Mitra Reddy, editor, Proceedings of the 16th IEEE Internazional Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE'07), June 18 - 20, 2007, Paris, France, pages 370 - 375, 2007, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, California.
  • Mirjam Minor, Andreas Koldehoff, Daniel Schmalen, and Ralph Bergmann. Configurable Contexts for Experience Management. In Norbert Gronau, editor, 4th Conference on Professional Knowledge Management - Experiences and Visions, volume 2, pages 119 - 126, Potsdam, March 2007, University of Potsdam, GITO-Verlag Berlin.

2006

  • Mirjam Minor, Andreas Koldehoff, Daniel Schmalen, and Ralph Bergmann. Flexible Workflows for Digital Design in the Nano Era. In Barbara Weber, and Jan Mendling, editors, Proceedings of the Fifteenth IEEE International Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE 2006), Workshop ProFlex 2006, June 26 - 28, Manchester, UK, pages 273 - 278, 2006, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, California.
  • Mirjam Minor, Andreas Koldehoff, Daniel Schmalen, and Ralph Bergmann. Flexible Workflows for Knowledge Management in the Digital Design. In Martin Schaaf, and Klaus-Dieter Althoff, editors, LWA 2006 Lernen - Wissensentdeckung - Adaptivität, 9.-11.10.2006 in Hildesheim, pages 215 -- 219, 2006, Universität Hildesheim.

Diploma Theses

      • Jie Sun, Ein Monitoring-Tool für langfristige agile Workflows, 2008
      • Steffen Salewski, Entwicklung einer grafischen Anwendung zur Modellierung und Modifikation agiler Workflows, 2007
      • Rouven Thimm. Workflow Management Concepts For Agile Long-Term Workflows.  2006.