CAD tools for mixed signal design

At present, computer-aided design (CAD) simulation programs are widely used as tools for testing and evaluating the performance of various designs within the different research fields of engineering. Advancements in analog design tools have played a critical role in increasing the efficiency of analog circuit design and verification. Because of the effectiveness and capabilities of these tools, different simulation programs have been designed.

SPICE was the first CAD tool developed for analog design at University of California, Berkeley in 1970. Since then, SPICE and SPICE models started to become adapted by analog designers, to their now long time stature as indispensable design tools. SPICE complemented the manual calculations, providing designers with an accurate way to verify their designs, and enabling designers to rapidly understand the effects of process and environmental conditions. SPICE has advanced considerably over the past 30 years. The basic AC, DC, transient and steady-state simulation techniques are much faster and more accurate, and the addition of new analysis techniques has enabled designers to create circuits that operate at high speeds, are tolerant to noise, and have high yield.

Many other variants of SPICE are present. Those are:

1.      PSPICE

2.      Aim-SPICE

3.      HSPICE

4.      NGSPICE

5.      WinSPICE etc.

Different CAD Tools for Analog and Mixed Signal Design

Due to the increasing levels of integration available in silicon technology and the growing requirement for digital systems to communicate with the continuous-valued external world, there is a growing need for CAD tools that increase the design productivity and improve the quality of analog integrated circuits. Therefore there are many CAD tools developed for analog and mixed signal design.

There are many tools available for analog and mixed signal design. Those are:

1.      MATLAB

2.      LabVIEW

3.      SPICE

4.      VHDL-AMS

5.      PSIM

6.      ELDO

7.      Synopsys

8.      T-CAD

For mixed signal design, design of both analog and digital sections is required. Therefore, a mixed signal design CAD tool is preferred.

Advantages of MATLAB over other mixed signal design tools:

1. MATLAB is a high-level language whose basic data type is a matrix that does not require dimensioning. 

2. There is no compilation and linking as is done in high-level languages, such as C or FORTRAN. 

3. Computer solutions in MATLAB are much quicker than those of a high-level language such as C or FORTRAN. 

4. MATLAB is better for computation than LabVIEW. 

5. Simulations execute faster in MATLAB (nearly 3 times) as compared to LabVIEW. 

6. The maximum error in the delay, computed using MATLAB, is less than 8% compared to HSPICE simulation results. 

7. MATLAB has a rich set of plotting capabilities.

8. It is also a programming environment; therefore the user can extend the functional capabilities of MATLAB by writing new modules.

9. MATLAB also has a large collection of toolboxes in a variety of domains.

10. MATLAB is a tool which can provide analog and digital design on a common platform and the verification of the circuit performance can be estimated. 

Therefore, MATLAB has become the preferred language of computing for the researchers.