A methodology for automated generation of analogue integrated circuits

A number of researchers have directed their efforts to expert system methods in order to automate the analogue design process. Generally, these systems combine algorithmic and heuristic knowledge together with design procedures of expert circuit designers to aid the generation of sized transistor level circuits from performance specifications. In this paper the authors first review some existing approaches and then introduce a new approach which overcomes several of their drawbacks. To provide a suitable benchmark for the comparison of these approaches they first describe the familiar analogue circuit design process. So far, only operational amplifiers have been considered