Despite the spectacular breakthroughs of the semiconductor industry, the
ability to design integrated circuits under stringent time-to-market
requirements is lagging behind integration capacity, so far keeping pace
with still valid Moore's Law. The resulting gap is threatening with
slowing down such a phenomenal growth. The design community believes
that it is only by means of powerful CAD tools, design methodologies and
even a design paradigm shift, that this design gap can be bridged. In
this sense, reuse-based design is seen as a promising solution, and
concepts such as IP Block, Virtual Component, and Design Reuse have
become commonplace thanks to the significant advances in the digital
arena. Unfortunately, the very nature of analog and mixed-signal (AMS)
design -more subtle, hierarchically loose, and handicraft-demanding- has
hindered a similar level of consensus and development.
Aiming at the core of the problem, Reuse Based Methodologies and Tools
in the Design of Analog and Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuits presents
a framework for the reuse-based design of AMS circuits. The framework is
founded on three key elements: (1) a CAD-supported hierarchical design
flow that facilitates the incorporation of AMS reusable blocks, reduces
the overall design time, and expedites the management of increasing AMS
design complexity; (2) a complete, clear definition of the AMS reusable
block, structured into three separate facets or views: the behavioral,
structural, and layout facets, the first two for top-down electrical
synthesis and bottom-up verification, the latter used during bottom-up
physical synthesis; (3) the design for reusability set of tools,
methods, and guidelines that, relying on intensive parameterization as
well as on design knowledge capture and encapsulation, allows to produce
fully reusable AMS blocks.
Reuse Based Methodologies and Tools in the Design of Analog and
Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuits features a very detailed, tutorial,
and in-depth coverage of all issues and must-have properties of reusable
AMS blocks, as well as a thorough description of the methods and tools
necessary to implement them. For the first time, this has been done
hierarchically, covering one by one the different stages of the design
flow, allowing us to examine how the reusable block yields its benefits,
both in design time and correct performance.
