One embodiment provides a method and a system for automated design of a computational system. During operation, the system obtains a component library comprising a plurality of computational components, receives design requirements of the computational system, and builds a plurality of universal component cells. A respective universal component cell is configurable, by a selection signal, to behave as one of the plurality of computational components. The system further constructs a candidate computational system using the plurality of universal component cells and encodes the received design requirements and the candidate computational system into a single logic formula. Variables within the single logic formula comprise at least inputs, outputs, and internal variables of the candidate computational system. The system solves the single logic formula to obtain at least one design solution for the computational system.