Automated design of radio-frequency single-ended switched capacitor arrays using genetic algorithms

This paper presents an automated synthesis procedure to design radio-frequency and microwave binary-weighted single-ended switched capacitor arrays (RFSSCAs) from user top-level specifications to components sizes. The method relies on closed-form symbolic mathematical expressions of the input impedance and quality factor of the RFSSCA. The genetic synthesis tool optimizes a fitness function based on user-specified performance constraints. The method determines several optimal solutions, which are completely independent of the starting point. Moreover, infeasible specifications are unambiguously detected. To validate the proposed design algorithm, two RFSSCAs are synthesized in a 0.35 mum CMOS technology and verified by the SpectreRF simulator of the Cadence design environment. The results show that the synthesis and simulation outcomes are in very good agreement.