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ACTER: An Automated Approach to Analog IP Characterization

Thursday, May 12, 2011
By: Angan Das / Intel Corporation
Topic: General — Sub-topic: Design Flows

Summary

Lack of adequate analog automation in today’s era is a primary factor for high turn-around-time of design spin-offs. CAD engineers need to provide better and converged analog CAD tools and solutions to meet the rising demands of the design engineer. Amongst other tasks, analog IP (AIP) characterization is an important requirement of several microprocessor design teams. It enables the creation of black-box models for AIPs, which may be fed to higher-level analysis tools. Towards this end, most of the flows till date have been manual and ad-hoc in nature. This paper introduces ACTER – a new tool for automated analog IP characterization. ACTER encompasses timing and power characterizations, with capability for individual characterization conditions, if required. The tool also computes block and pin attributes for the AIP. ACTER drives convergence efforts, introduces an easier support model, and has limited GUI capabilities, amongst other advantages. This work is a genuine effort towards a central standardized tool to consolidate collateral generation for AIPs. Presently it has been productized among several microprocessor design teams at Intel Corporation and a positive impact has been observed till now.

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