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Why is the analog stuff so hard?

Why is the analog stuff so hard?. Martin Vlach Chief Technologist, AMS DSM February 2013. Six Conjectures. Mutual understanding of digital and analog engineers. What is this analog? Get me out of the messy real world to the digital algorithms as fast as possible.

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Why is the analog stuff so hard?

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  1. Why is the analog stuff so hard? Martin Vlach Chief Technologist, AMS DSM February 2013

  2. Six Conjectures • Mutual understandingof digital and analog engineers. • What is this analog? Get me out of the messy real world to the digital algorithms as fast as possible. • Algebra vs. calculus. • There are no standard cells in analog. • There is no synthesis. • Concept abstraction. • Digital: each level can be considered independently of the surrounding levels • layout -> cells/gates -> RTL -> transactions -> algorithms • Analog: each level must be considered fully in the context of the surrounding levels • layout -> transistors -> building blocks -> sub(systems) MV, AMS SOC Verification, May 2012

  3. Conjectures… • Industry standards and initiatives. • In digital, there are industry standards and methodologies for verification that designers and EDA vendors can gather around. The roadmap is shared and understood by all. • In analog, there is no such shared understanding beyond SPICE-level simulation. • What the heck is a model anyway? • Verilog actually describes hardware, and there is a level of understanding that comes with that. • In analog, all model (even SPICE) are approximations of behavior, and that causes problems. MV, AMS SOC Verification, May 2012

  4. Conjectures… • Traceability when changing abstraction levels. • In digital, abstraction level equivalence definition is “easy”: an input stream of 0s/1s leads to the same out stream at both abstraction levels. • In analog, a similar abstraction level equivalence cannot be defined: it’s all an approximation. • In digital one describes hardware. • In analog one models the behavior. • What is analog model fidelity? • Analog modeling is all about deciding what not to represent. • This is a judgment call on the part of the modeler • Fidelity then is how well the model predicts the behavior that one choses to model. MV, AMS SOC Verification, May 2012

  5. The answer is “No” • Will a neurosurgeon ever be able to do heart surgery? • Would you want her to do yours? MV, AMS SOC Verification, May 2012

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