Ease Design Success in nm Analog Using Generators

Smart systems and devices are connected to the "real" and analog world in order to achieve a maximum benefit for society. Therefore, alongside massive digital functionality, analog will always be necessary at least at the device's interfaces. Designing such analog parts, however, differs significantly from digital design. Ever more powerful synthesis tools improve the productivity of digital design engineers while analog design suffers from still largely manual design. The reason is found in the complex kind of constraints and objectives that are to be considered simultaneously. Generators are designer-friendly tools which automate frequent analog building blocks in a user-defined way. This paper presents the application of generators in a 22nm SAR-ADC design. It discusses the advantages of generators over manual iterations regarding design productivity and presents an outlook how to further improve generators as well as their integration into the analog design flow.