Novel Variation-Aware Topology Synthesis

Abstract

This is an exploratory chapter which makes tentative first steps towards flows for analog circuit design in which the tool helps in designing novel circuit functionality and/or novel topologies.

Previous chapters showed how much flexibility there is in choosing fullytrustworthy topologies, using the MOJITO flow. But sometimes there may be a need for truly novel functionality, or novel topologies. Because of the costs of fabricating a design, the motivation for a new topology has to be strong. New topologies only come about if there is no other way, if the idea has possible orders of magnitude payoff such that it’s worth the money to try, or if there is some way to make trying it zero risk. That said, sometimes these motivations exist, and therefore it is of interest to see what sort of effective algorithms can be created, to have the computer generate new topologies.

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

– Isaac Newton