Efficient simplification strategies for symbolic circuit expressions of linear analog integrated circuits

Balavelan Thanigaivelan; Adam Postula; Yong Ding

doi:10.1117/12.638479

5 January 2006 Efficient simplification strategies for symbolic circuit expressions of linear analog integrated circuits

Balavelan Thanigaivelan, Adam Postula, Yong Ding

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6035, Microelectronics: Design, Technology, and Packaging II; 60350Z (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.638479
Event: Microelectronics, MEMS, and Nanotechnology, 2005, Brisbane, Australia

Abstract

Analog circuit design is a very knowledge-intensive process, which heavily relies on the designer's understanding of circuit's behaviour. Symbolic Circuit Analysis gives the designer an additional insight and helps to gain a better understanding of circuit functionality. Moreover Symbolic Analysis plays a major role in analog circuit design automation process and is complementary to the numerical (SPICE) circuit simulation. Therefore automatic generation of symbolic circuit expressions or models has currently become a topic of heightened interest. The main difficulty of symbolic circuit analysis is that: the number of product terms in a symbolic expression increases exponentially with the size of the circuit. In order to handle circuits of large sizes several simplification and approximation strategies have been suggested in the literature, but the interpretability of the derived expressions has received insufficient attention from the symbolic analysis community. Symbolic expressions of relatively small circuits are not in readable format even for experienced designers, besides being complex for classroom teaching. This paper presents efficient strategies that can be adopted while simplifying large symbolic circuit expressions, aimed at preserving the accuracy and interpretability of circuit expressions better. The goal is to show that exploiting certain information from the device model and taking Miller effect of feedback elements into consideration will result in more meaningful simple expressions in nested formats that can be easily expanded as well. The strategies suggested in this paper are illustrated with different practical MOS and bipolar circuit examples, with emphasis on the compactness and interpretability of the circuit expressions.

Citation Download Citation

Balavelan Thanigaivelan, Adam Postula, and Yong Ding "Efficient simplification strategies for symbolic circuit expressions of linear analog integrated circuits", Proc. SPIE 6035, Microelectronics: Design, Technology, and Packaging II, 60350Z (5 January 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.638479

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available