In many sectors, including communications and the automotive industry in particular, mechanical functions are being replaced by electronic functions. This has led to a continued strong demand for integrated systems solutions, especially where the integration of analog and digital functions on one integrated circuit is required. For the suppliers, time to market is of critical importance when custom chips are produced to satisfy these demands. The number of devices integrated on a single chip, and hence the complexity of integrated circuits, is steadily increasing. As a result, the demands placed on the designers and their development tools are rising dramatically.
Software products are currently in widespread use for the various phases of digital circuit design.
However, analog and mixed signal integrated circuits display a much higher complexity and the computing constraints do not currently permit the same extensive simulations during the design phase. The industrial risk is therefore significantly higher. This project aims to be the first step in providing improved computational support for the design of such circuits.