A synthesis flow toward fast parasitic closure for radio-frequency integrated circuits

• Main Authors: Zhang, Gang, Dengi, Aykut, Rohrer, Ronald A., Rutenbar, Rob A., Carley, L. Richard
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amplifiers; Applied sciences; Circuit optimization; Circuit properties; Circuit synthesis; Circuit topology; Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Hardware > Electronic design automation > Physical design (EDA); Integrated circuit synthesis; Integrated circuits; Permission; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency integrated circuits; Robustness; Routing; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Signal convertors; Statistics
• ISSN: 0738-100X
• DOI: 10.1145/996566.996612

An electrical and physical synthesis flow for high-speed analog and radio-frequency circuits is presented in this paper. Novel techniques aiming at fast parasitic closure are employed throughout the flow. Parasitic corners generated based on the earlier placement statistics are included for circuit resizing to enable parasitic robust designs. A performance-driven placement with simultaneous fast incremental global routing is proposed to achieve accurate parasitic estimation. Device tuning is utilized during layout to compensate for layout induced performance degradations. This methodology allows sophisticated macromodels of performances versus device variables and parasitics to be used during layout synthesis to make it truly performance-driven. Experimental results of a 4GHz LNA and a mixer demonstrate fast parasitic closure with this methodology.