Signal-path driven partition and placement for analog circuit

This paper advances a new methodology based on signal-path information to resolve the problem of device-level placement for analog layout. This methodology is mainly based on three observations: thinking of hierarchical design for analog, structural feature of circuit based on signal-path, requirements of matching/symmetry constraint and the reduction of parasitics. The thinking of hierarchical design makes the whole analog circuit divided into core-circuit and bias-circuit. So, the algorithm is designed as two independent steps: core-circuit is placed firstly, and then bias-circuit. The structural feature of circuit based on signal-path and the requirement of matching/symmetry constraint decide the placement pattern of core-circuit. The reduction of parasitics requires the algorithm to select the optimal variants to realize the placement. Experimental results demonstrate that this algorithm can generate the compact layout with high performance and it is universal and effective