Verification and synthesis of structural features of analog/mixed-signal circuit using constraint programming exampled by ESD and level shifting

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Helmut Gräb
• Subject Area: Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 431736995

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

The design of analog/mixed-signal circuits is characterized by diverse constraints and objectives. For a stronger automation of the design, it is necessary to capture these constraints and objectives in an automated way. In this research project, two new approaches were developed to automatically generate constraints and objectives for analog/mixed-signal circuit design from the given netlist of a circuit. On the one hand, a so-called function block library was developed for basic components, e.g. of operational amplifiers, with which constraints and analytical equations for the design are generated. On the other hand, a simple constructive method was developed to first generate a structural block library for a given class of circuits. Furthermore, initial approaches were pursued to make the knowledge contained in designs with such libraries usable for circuit sizing in the form of neural networks.

Publications

• Library-free Structure Recognition for Analog Circuits. 2021 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE), 1366-1371. IEEE.
  Neuner, Maximilian; Abel, Inga & Graeb, Helmut
  
• A functional block decomposition method for automatic op-amp design. Integration, 85, 108–120.
  Abel, Inga; Neuner, Maximilian & Graeb, Helmut
  
• Learning from the Implicit Functional Hierarchy in an Analog Netlist. Proceedings of the 2023 International Symposium on Physical Design, 93-100. ACM.
  Graeb, Helmut & Leibl, Markus