A method of identifying technology design candidates from a design space of design candidates leverages specialized operators which are smooth in the sense that the operators are capable of producing small changes in the performance or behaviour when applied to a design to modify it. The method includes determining a smooth operator for effecting incremental structural change to a technology design when the smooth operator is applied to the technology design and then applying the smooth operator to at least one technology design in the population to determine an updated population. The technology designs in the updated population are evaluated to identify a preferred semiconductor technology design. If the stopping condition is satisfied then the search terminates otherwise the steps are repeated.