CCF:SHF:Medium: Automated End-to-End Synthesis for Programmable Analog & Mixed-Signal Systems

自动化数字设计工具实现了广泛的数字创新，而自动化混合信号和模拟设计工具也具有同样广泛的电子创新的潜力。当今的模拟系统设计过程由于所需的手工工作而阻碍了新集成电路(IC)工艺的发展。对低功率、高效率模拟和混合信号计算(例如，机器学习)的新需求进一步增加了模拟系统设计中最先进的技术带来的瓶颈。该项目的成功将大大减少大规模模拟和混合信号IC的设计时间、设计成本和设计不确定性。这些创新将需要在多个层面上进行教育创新，并可能围绕这些工具创造未来的商业机会。该项目提出了一个设计自动化框架，可以实现从高级描述到目标可配置设备或定制硅IC布局的端到端综合。它为抽象和自动化模拟设计奠定了与技术无关的坚实基础。这一工具功能为模拟和混合信号计算带来了新的愿景，类似于数字设计领域已经看到的那样。这一努力产生了第一个模拟/混合信号高级综合，即从诸如Python之类的行为级描述，以及基于文本的模拟/混合信号中级综合。混合模拟/数字架构的联合设计为超低能耗应用提供了实时到接近零的延迟计算，同时扩展了模拟电路的架构设计空间。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Automated digital-design tools have enabled a wide range of digital innovations, and automating mixed-signal and analog design tools have the potential for an equally wide range of electronic innovations. Today’s analog system design processes are impeding the development of new integrated circuits (ICs) processing due to the required manual effort. The emerging demand for low-power high-efficiency analog and mixed-signal-computing (e.g. machine learning) further is only increasing the bottlenecks imposed by the state of the art in analog system design. The success of this project would drastically decrease the design time, design cost, and design uncertainty of large-scale analog and mixed-signal ICs. These innovations will require educational innovation at multiple levels and could enable future commercial opportunities built around these tools. This project proposes a design-automation framework that enables end-to-end synthesis from the high-level description down to targeted configurable devices or custom silicon IC layouts. It lays a solid technology-independent foundation to abstract and automate analog design. This tool capability enables a new vision for analog and mixed-signal computing, similar to that has already seen in digital design spaces. This effort creases the first analog/mixed-signal high-level synthesis, i.e., from behavioral-level description such as Python, as well as text-based analog/mixed-signal mid-level synthesis. The co-design of mixed analog/digital architectures enables real-time to near-zero latency computing for ultra-low-energy applications, while expanding the architectural design space for analog circuits.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.