Abstract
This paper presents a new Procedural Analog Design tool called PAD. It is a chart-based design environment dedicated to the design of analog circuits aiming to optimize design and quality by finding good tradeoffs. This interactive tool allows step-by-step design of analog cells by using guidelines for each analog topology. Its interactive interface enables instantaneous visualization of design tradeoffs. At each step, the user modifies interactively one subset of design parameters and observes the effect on other circuit parameters. At the end, an optimized design is ready for simulation (verification and fine-tuning). The present version of PAD covers the design of basic analog structures (one transistor or groups of transistors) and the procedural design of transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) and different operational amplifier topologies. The basic analog structures’ calculator embedded in PAD uses the complete set of equations of the EKV MOS model, which links the equations for weak and strong inversion in a continuous way [1, 2]. Furthermore, PAD provides a layout generator for matched substructures such as current mirrors, cascode stages and differential pairs.
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PAD beta version can be downloaded from: http://legwww. epfl.ch/CSL/
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Danica Stefanovic was born in 1976. She received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Nis (Serbia and Montenegro) in 2000 and 2003 respectively. In 2001/2002 she was a scholarship holder of Swiss Confederation working with Electronic Laboratories, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), on a research project in the domain of analog circuits design techniques and their translation into specific CAD tool. She is currently working towards Ph.D. degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). Her research interests include low power, low voltage analog design methodologies and optimisation techniques.
Maher Kayal was born in 1959. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland) in 1983 and 1989 respectively.
In 1990, he had a Research Associate in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. From 1999 he became a professor in the Electronics Laboratories of this institute. He has published many scientific papers and contributed in three books dedicated to mixed-mode CMOS design. His current research interests include: mixed-mode circuit design, sensors, signal processing and CAD tools for analog design and layout automation. He received in 1990 the Swiss Ascom award for the best work in telecommunication fields and in 1997 the best ASIC award at the European Design and Test Conference ED&TC.
Marc Pastre was born in 1977. He received the M.S. degree in computer science at EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in 2000. He is currently working towards his Ph.D. at the Electronics Laboratories LEG (EPFL). His research interests include mixed circuits, ADCs/DACs, sensor frontends and CAD tools.
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Stefanovic, D., Kayal, M. & Pastre, M. PAD: A New Interactive Knowledge-Based Analog Design Approach. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 42, 291–299 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-005-6762-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-005-6762-9