AGSPICE: A new analog ICs design tool based on evolutionary electronics used for extracting additional design recommendations

Abstract

Analog integrated circuits (ICs) design is a complex task due to the large number of input variables that must be determined simultaneously in order to achieve different multiple design goals of an analog integrated circuit design, such as voltage gain (A V), unit voltage gain frequency (f T), slew-rate (SR), harmonic distortion (THD), etc. By using an evolutionary system based on Genetic Algorithm (AG) integrated to the SPICE simulator, named AGSPICE, this work aims to study, understand and calculate the different correlations between the MOSFETs inversion regimes and the design goals of an operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) operating in different design features. We believe that the AGSPICE can provide new design recommendations for the designers and reduce the design cycle time as well. Our experimental results with the AGSPICE are also compared to the results obtained manually and present compatible solutions to other works available in the related literature. © 2012 IEEE.