Automated simplified analysis of analogue circuit behaviour based on fully symbolic relations between parameters

Abstract

Symbolic circuit analysis provides the key for understanding the mechanisms underneath circuit operation, and it can be used to obtain predictive models of circuit behaviour. Symbolic analysis has many applications in the design of analogue circuits but is severely limited by the size of the resulting expressions. Thus an efficient approximation strategy is required for successful symbolic analysis of large analogue circuits. A fully symbolic procedure for the simplification of large expressions, which mimics the heuristic procedures followed by an experienced designer (based on the relations between the parameters of the circuit), is presented in this paper. This simplification strategy is particularly well suited to be combined with some circuit level partition algorithms, leading to a blend between simplification after generation (SAG) and simplification during generation (SDG). The algorithms have been implemented and integrated on a prototype software package for the automated analysis and design of analogue circuits.