AIDA: Analog IC Design Automation based on a Fully Configurable Design Hierarchy and Flow

This paper presents a new design automation environment to support analog IC design. The proposed approach introduces an increased level of flexibility and reusability when compared to traditional approaches. The flexibility is achieved by both allowing the designer to define its own hierarchical design organization and, simultaneously, the design flow for each design. The reusability is achieved by introducing an highly organized data structure to store the entire design data allowing an easy reuse and retargeting of pre-design systems and predefined design flows. Finally, a case study is presented to illustrate the functionality of the described design automation environment.