Adaptive techniques for mixed signal system on chip

Analog and mixed signal integrated systems of today and tomorrow will be very complex, as they meet the challenge and increased demand for higher levels of integration in a System on Chip (SoC). Current and future trends call for pushing system integration to the highest levels in order to achieve low cost and low power for large volume products in the consumer and telecom markets, such as feature-rich handheld battery-operated devices. In today’s analog design environment, a fully integrated CMOS SoC design may require several silicon spins before it meets all product specifications and often with relatively low yields. This results in significant increase in development cost, especially that mask set costs increase exponentially as feature size scales down.

This book is devoted to the subject of adaptive techniques for smart analog and mixed signal design whereby fully functional first-pass silicon is achievable. To our knowledge, this is the first book devoted to this subject. The techniques described should lead to quantum improvement in design productivity of complex analog and mixed signal systems while significantly cutting the spiraling costs of product development in emerging nanometer technologies. The underlying principles and design techniques presented are generic and would certainly apply to CMOS analog and mixed signal platforms in high volume , low-cost wireless , wire line, and consumer electronic SoC or chip set solutions.

Adaptive Techniques for Mixed Signal Sytem on Chip discusses the concept of adaptation in the context of analog and mixed signal design along with different adaptive architectures used to control any system parameter. The first part of the book gives an overview of the different elements that are normally used in adaptive designs including tunable elements as well as voltage, current, and time references with an emphasis on the circuit design of specific blocks such as voltage-controlled transconductors, offset comparators, and a novel technique for accurate implementation of on chip resistors. While the first part of the book addresses adaptive techniques at the circuit and block levels, the second part discusses adaptive equalization architectures employed to minimize the impact of ISI (Intersymbol Interference) on the quality of received data in high-speed wire line transceivers. It presents the implementation of a 125Mbps transceiver operating over a variable length of Category 5 (CAT-5) Ethernet cable as an example of adaptive equalizers.