Analog and Mixed-Signal Verification Using Satisfiability Solver on Discretized Models

Abstract

In recent years, the growth in compact electronic devices has been tremendous. Moore's law states that the number of transistors on integrated circuit chips has doubled every year since its invention. With a steady compression of circuits, the complexity has gone up, making the validation process vital. Automation tools have benefitted the EDA industry for circuit design, validation and testing for years. However, continuous nature of Analog and Mixed-Signal (AMS) circuits make them unsuitable for these tools. This work proposes two approaches, DC verification and transient analysis, using Satisfiability solvers on Discretized models of AMS circuits to increase the level of automation in the verification process. The run-time performance is tested on suitable examples and results are compared with existing approaches. The comparison demonstrates that the approach is a good balance between accuracy and run-time.