Analog integrated circuits are very important as interfaces between the digital parts of integrated electronic systems and the outside world. A large portion of the effort involved in designing these circuits is spent in the layout phase. Whereas the physical design of digital circuits is automated to a large extent, the layout of analog circuits is still a manual, time-consuming and error-prone task. This is mainly due to the continuous nature of analog signals, which causes analog circuit performance to be very sensitive to layout parasitics. The parasitic elements associated with interconnect wires cause loading and coupling effects that degrade the frequency behaviour and the noise performance of analog circuits. Device mismatch and thermal effects put a fundamental limit on the achievable accuracy of circuits. For successful automation of analog layout, advanced place and route tools that can handle these critical parasitics are required. In the past, automatic analog layout tools tried to optimize the layout without quantifying the performance degradation introduced by layout parasitics. Therefore, it was not guaranteed that the resulting layout met the specifications and one or more layout iterations could be needed. In Analog Layout Generation for Performance and Manufacturability, the authors propose a performance driven layout strategy to overcome this problem. In this methodology, the layout tools are driven by performance constraints, such that the final layout, with parasitic effects, still satisfies the specifications of the circuit. The performance degradation associated with an intermediate layout solution is evaluated at runtime using predetermined sensitivities. In contrast with other performance driven layout methodologies, the tools proposed in this book operate directly on the performance constraints, without an intermediate parasitic constraint generation step. This approach makes a complete and sensible trade-off between the different layout alternatives possible at runtime and therefore eliminates the possible feedback route between constraint derivation, placement and layout extraction. Besides its influence on the performance, layout also has a profound impact on the yield and testability of an analog circuit. In Analog Layout Generation for Performance and Manufacturability, the authors outline a new criterion to quantify the detectability of a fault and combine this with a yield model to evaluate the testability of an integrated circuit layout. They then integrate this technique with their performance driven routing algorithm to produce layouts that have optimal manufacturability while still meeting their performance specifications. Analog Layout Generation for Performance and Manufacturability will be of interest to analog engineers, researchers and students.

This title covers important physical-design issues that exist in contemporary analogue and mixed-signal design flows. The authors bring together many principles and techniques required to successfully develop and implement layout generation tools to accommodate many mixed-signal layout generation needs.

This text addresses the design methodologies and CAD tools available for the systematic design and design automation of analogue integrated circuits. Two complementary approaches discussed increase analogue design productivity, demonstrated throughout using design times of the different design experiments undertaken.

The microelectronics market, with special emphasis to the production of complex mixed-signal systems-on-chip (SoC), is driven by three main dynamics, time-- market, productivity and managing complexity. Pushed by the progress in na- meter technology, the design teams are facing a curve of complexity that grows exponentially, thereby slowing down the productivity design rate. Analog design automation tools are not developing at the same pace of technology, once custom design, characterized by decisions taken at each step of the analog design flow, - lies most of the time on designer knowledge and expertise. Actually, the use of - sign management platforms, like the Cadences Virtuoso platform, with a set of - tegrated CAD tools and database facilities to deal with the design transformations from the system level to the physical implementation, can significantly speed-up the design process and enhance the productivity of analog/mixed-signal integrated circuit (IC) design teams. These design management platforms are a valuable help in analog IC design but they are still far behind the development stage of design automation tools already available for digital design. Therefore, the development of new CAD tools and design methodologies for analog and mixed-signal ICs is ess- tial to increase the designer’s productivity and reduce design productivitygap. The work presented in this book describes a new design automation approach to the problem of sizing analog ICs.

In the 11th edition in this successful series, the topics are structured-mixed-mode design, multi-bit sigma-delta converters and short range RF circuits. The book provides valuable information and excellent overviews of analogue circuit design, CAD and RF systems.

Analog Test Signal Generation Using Periodic SigmaDelta-Encoded Data Streams presents a new method to generate high quality analog signals with low hardware complexity. The theory of periodic SigmaDelta-encoded bitstreams is presented along with a set of empirical tables to help select the appropriate parameters of a bitstream. An optimization procedure is also outlined to help select a bit sequence with the desired attributes. A large variety of signals can be generated using this approach. Silicon implementation issues are discussed with a specific emphasis on area overhead and ease of design. One FPGA circuit and three different silicon implementations are presented along with experimental results. It is shown that simple designs are capable of generating very high precision signals-on-chip. The technique is further extended to multi-bit signal generation where it is shown how to increase the performance of arbitrary waveform, generators commonly found in past and present-day mixed-signal testers. No hardware modifications are required, only the numbers in memory are changed. Three different calibration techniques to reduce the effects of the AWG's non-linearities are also introduced, together with supporting experimental evidence. The main focus of this text is to describe an area-efficient technique for analog signal generation using SigmaDelta-encoded data stream. The main characteristics of the technique are: High quality signals (SFDR of 110 dB observed); Large variety of signals generated; Bitstreams easily obtained with a fast optimization program; Good frequency resolution, compatible with coherent sampling; Simple and fast hardware implementation; Mostly digital, except an easily testable 1-bit DAC and possibly a reconstruction filter; Memory already available on-chip can be reused, reducing area overhead; Designs can be incorporated into existing CAD tools; High frequency generation.

The tools and techniques you need to break the analog design bottleneck! Ten years ago, analog seemed to be a dead-end technology. Today, System-on-Chip (SoC) designs are increasingly mixed-signal designs. With the advent of application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) technologies that can integrate both analog and digital functions on a single chip, analog has become more crucial than ever to the design process. Today, designers are moving beyond hand-crafted, one-transistor-at-a-time methods. They are using new circuit and physical synthesis tools to design practical analog circuits; new modeling and analysis tools to allow rapid exploration of system level alternatives; and new simulation tools to provide accurate answers for analog circuit behaviors and interactions that were considered impossible to handle only a few years ago. To give circuit designers and CAD professionals a better understanding of the history and the current state of the art in the field, this volume collects in one place the essential set of analog CAD papers that form the foundation of today's new analog design automation tools. Areas covered are: * Analog synthesis * Symbolic analysis * Analog layout * Analog modeling and analysis * Specialized analog simulation * Circuit centering and yield optimization * Circuit testing Computer-Aided Design of Analog Integrated Circuits and Systems is the cutting-edge reference that will be an invaluable resource for every semiconductor circuit designer and CAD professional who hopes to break the analog design bottleneck.