A frequency relaxation approach for analog/RF system-level simulation

ABSTRACT

The increasing complexity of today's mixed-signal integrated circuits necessitates both top-down and bottom-up system-level verification. Time-domain state-space modeling and simulation approaches have been successfully applied for such purposes (e.g. Simulink); however, analog circuits are often best analyzed in the frequency domain. Circuit-level analyses, such as harmonic balance, have been successfully extended to the frequency domain [2], but these algorithms are impractical for simulating large systems with wide-band input and noise signals. In this paper we proposed a frequency-domain approach for analog/RF system-level simulation that is capable of capturing various second order effects (e.g. nonlinearity, noise, etc.) for both time-invariant and time-varying systems with wide-band inputs. The simulator directly evaluates the frequency domain response at each node via a relaxation scheme that is proven to be convergent under typical circuit conditions. Our experimental results demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed simulator under various wide-band input and noise excitations.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
      B.7.2 Design Aids
          Subjects: Verification

General Terms:
Algorithms

Keywords:
analog/RF circuits, system-level simulation