Automated Design Tools for Integrated Mixed-Signal Microsystems (NeoCAD)

摘要

Automated design tools and integrated design flow methodologies were developed that demonstrated more than an order- of-magnitude reduction in cycle time and cost for mixed signal (digital/analoglRF) and mixed electronic- photonic microsystems, such as high-clock-rate and wide-dynamic-range Analog-to- Digital (AID) converters, These tools and methodologies combined several innovative synthesis, simulation, and optimization techniques, including a fast time-domain circuit simulation method, Model Order Reduction (MOR) tools, system-level, mixed-signal circuit synthesis and optimization tools, and parsitic extraction tools. A unique combination of these innovative techniques enables efficient design of systems far beyond today's state-of-the-art. In the future, these tools will allow designers of high-performance, mixed-signl circuits, such as high-order tunable, delta-sigma modulators and the photonic AID converters operating at 10s of GHz clock rates, to optimize their designs with orders of magnitude more iterations, and hence, far better performance.