Mixed-Signal Layout Generation Concepts

This work covers important physical-design issues that exist in contemporary analogue and mixed-signal design flows. Due to the increasing pressure on time-to-market, the steep increase in chip fabrication costs, and the increasing design complexity, it becomes even more challenging to produce a first-time right IC layout. The fundamental issues in creating a layout are placement and routing. Although these coupled problems have been investigated for many decades, no satisfactory automated solution has emerged yet. Fortunately, supported by modern computing power and results of new research that further improve computation efficiency, significant steps forward have been taken. This text brings together many principles and techniques required to successfully develop and implement layout generation tools to accommodate many mixed-signal layout generation needs. Not only does it provide a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art concepts, it also illustrates many concepts with intuitive examples and pseudo code. Altogether, it facilitates creation of insight in a vast and complex area. For those who are new to the area of mixed-signal layout generation, this book should provides a useful introduction to advanced topics in this area.