. This work studies the problem of CMOS operational amplifiers design optimisation. The synthesis of CMOS amplifiers can be translated into a multiple-objective optimisation task, in which a large number of specifications has to be taken into account, i.e., GBW, area, power consumption and others. We apply Genetic Algorithms [7] (GAs) to this problem; GAs are a computational optimisation technique which borrows some principles from biological evolution and have been widely applied to Computer Aided Design (CAD) of electronic circuits. A novel multi-objective optimisation methodology is embedded in our genetic algorithm and we focus mainly on the synthesis of micro-power analog cells. 1 Introduction We present a novel methodology applied to the problem of analog CMOS cells optimisation. Particularly, we tackle the issue of synthesising low-power operational amplifiers. The acquisition of micropower analog circuits is a major tendency in the electronics industry nowadays and, an...

This paper demonstrates that a design for a low-distortion highgain 96 decibel (64,860-to-1) operational amplifier (including both circuit topology and component sizing) can be evolved using genetic programming.

this paper we present a family of Mixed-signal (mixed analog/digital) synthesis tools being developed at the University of Cincinnati. The VASE (VHDL-AMS Synthesis Environment) project involves the development of a vertically integrated synthesis environment centered around the emerging VHDL-AMS standard for specification of analog and mixed signal systems. The unique contributions of this research include the following:

We present in this work the application of a set of different evolutionary methodologies in the problem of electronic filter design. The main objectives are to find out which constraints in the filter topologies, if any, must be observed along the evolutionary process and to study the problem of convergence to parsimonious circuits. The new area of Evolutionary Electronics is introduced, an evolutionary methodology based on variable length representation is presented and the results on the evolution of lowpass and band-pass filters are described. 1. Introduction This work focuses on the application of evolutionary systems in engineering design. Particularly, the application of evolutionary techniques in the area of electronic design and optimisation gave birth to a new and promising area of research, Evolutionary Electronics[12][5]. The aim of this area is the creation of new automation design techniques for electronic circuits, based on the Darwinian concepts of natural selection, r...

of the work presented in this thesis has been previously published as listed below. Although some of these papers have co-authors, the work appearing in this thesis is entirely my own, with the exception of parts of chapter 3, which presents work jointly carried out by myself and Adrian Thompson. The respective contributions to this work will be explicitly stated at the beginning of the chapter. List of Previous Publications Kuntz, P., Layzell, P., & Snyers, D. (1997). A Colony of Ant-like Agents for Partitioning

A persistent criticism of analog synthesis techniques is that they cannot cope with the complexity of realistic industrial designs, especially system-level designs. We show how recent advances in simulation-based synthesis can be augmented, via appropriate macromodeling, to attack complex analog blocks. To support this claim, we resynthesize from scratch, in several different styles, a complex equalizer/filter block from the frontend of a commercial ADSL CODEC, and verify by full simulation that it matches its original design specifications. As a result, we argue that synthesis has significant potential in both custom and analog IP reuse scenarios.

Genetic programming was used to evolve both the topology and the sizing (numerical values) for each component of a low-distortion, lowbias 60 decibel (1000-to-1) amplifier circuit with good frequency generalization. The evolved circuit was composed of two types of transistors (active elements) as well as resistors and capacitors. 1. Introduction The problem of circuit synthesis involves designing an electrical circuit that satisfies user-specified design goals. A complete design of an electrical circuit includes both its topology and the sizing of all its components. The topology of a circuit consists of the number of components in the circuit, the type of each component, and a list of all the connections between the components. The sizing of a circuit consists of the component value(s) of each component. Evolvable hardware is one approach to automated circuit synthesis. Some of the early pioneering work in this field includes that of Higuchi, Niwa, Tanaka, Iba, de Garis, and Furuya...

This paper introduces an automated circuit design system for the evolution and subsequent invention of CMOS amplifiers. The proposed system relies on a mix of genetic programming and a new topologyindependent design optimisation method referred to as current-flow analysis. Genetic programming evolves new circuit topologies from the collection of primitive devices and basic building blocks. Current-flow analysis screens and corrects circuits using topology-independent design rules. Experimental results show a promising improvement on the design of operational amplifiers that making the automated analogue design environment using genetic programming a lot more practical. I.

The design (synthesis) of analog electrical circuits entails the creation of both the topology and sizing (numerical values) of all of the circuit's components. There has previously been no general automated technique for automatically designing an analog electrical circuit from a high-level statement of the circuit's desired behavior. This paper shows how genetic programming can be used to automate the design of both the topology and sizing of a suite of five prototypical analog circuits, including a lowpass filter, a tri-state frequency discriminator circuit, a 60 dB amplifier, a computational circuit for the square root, and a timeoptimal robot controller circuit. All five of these genetically evolved circuits constitute instances of an evolutionary computation technique solving a problem that is usually thought to require human intelligence.

The design (synthesis) of an analog electrical circuit entails the creation of both the topology and sizing (numerical values) of all of the circuit's components. There has previously been no general automated technique for automatically creating the design for an analog electrical circuit from a high-level statement of the circuit's desired behavior. This paper shows how genetic programming can be used to automate the design of eight prototypical analog circuits, including a lowpass filter, a highpass filter, a bandstop filter, a tristate frequency discriminator circuit, a frequency-measuring circuit, a 60 dB amplifier, a computational circuit for the square root function, and a time-optimal robot controller circuit.