Design Meets EDA: Gaps and Countermeasures in Analog/Mixed-Signal IC Design

Along the path from specification to silicon, the design of analog/mixed-signal chips comprises a variety of challenges. They are of technological, methodological, organizational, communicational, and business nature. Additionally, large gaps are to be managed among the individual challenges. Still up to now, approaches such as the "four eye principle" are used even in industrial practice in order to handle them. However, steadily increasing system complexity makes this an end-of-range model. Instead, EDA support gets more and more relevant in order to tackle both problem-specific and overarching design challenges. Based on the well-known V-model, the tutorial will discuss the current design approach and discusses systematic alternatives comprising EDA, tools, tool interfaces, and usability aspects. With this, the design challenges can be tackled in order to stick with the market needs and tight design schedules.