Nanoelectronic Mixed-Signal System Design [Book Reviews

Abstract

The book covers the entire spectrum of modern integrated circuit (IC) technologies from the design and simulation point of view, starting at the schematic level and progressing through to actual physical design. There are many senior- and graduate level textbooks centered on traditional digital very-large-scale integration (VLSI) design. The topic is robust, mature, and has been taught for decades. In parallel, there is a much smaller population of texts focused on analog IC design with an emphasis on designing specific modules, such as amplifiers, analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, receivers, transmitters, filters, and other esoteric topics. Absent from the latter category of textbooks are the discussions of system-centered analog design geared toward integration into an SoC. The intersection of these two design disciplines is commonly known as mixed-signal or analog/mixed-signal (AMS) design, a topic that has received very little attention. There are only a handful of books on the subject, usually at very advanced levels; most are collections of loosely connected chapters or papers. This dearth of information is at odds with the fact that all IC design these days is AMS by virtue of the design methodologies developed and the systems themselves: pure digital systems, even though still tremendously useful for computation, do not reflect daily usage of commodity electronics dictated by our connected society. This book covers the entire spectrum of modern IC technologies from the design and simulation point of view, starting at the schematic level and progressing through to actual physical design, including postlayout simulation and design optimization, always with a systems emphasis. The audience for this massive and authoritative treatise includes those interested in AMS IC design, particularly at the nano level, and the book also addresses the needs of everyone in that scope: college seniors, master’s and Ph.D. students as well as practicing engineers, designers, and computer-aided design developers. It can be used both as a text and reference book at the same time, since it covers an immense amount of state-of-the-art material.