A Functional Block Decomposition Method for Automatic Op-Amp Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hierarchical method for decomposing op-amps into functional blocks, facilitating automated design and synthesis by recognizing high-level structures and their implementations.

Contribution

It presents a novel hierarchical library and an automatic decomposition method for op-amps, enhancing formalization and automation in analog circuit design.

Findings

Effective hierarchical decomposition of op-amps demonstrated

Enables formalization of design knowledge for CAD tools

Applications to circuit sizing and structural synthesis

Abstract

This paper presents a method to decompose an op-amp into its functional blocks. The method is able to recognize functional blocks on a high level of abstraction as loads or amplification stages which have a large set of possible structural implementations. The paper presents a hierarchical library of functional blocks. With every hierarchy level, the structural representation of the functional blocks becomes more variable while its function emerges. We use the hierarchical order to automatically compute the functional decomposition of an op-amp given as a flat netlist. Experimental results illustrate the method. The functional block decomposition enables a comprehensive formalization of design knowledge for computer-aided design of op-amps. Applications to circuit sizing and structural synthesis of op-amps are presented.