ISAID: qualitative reasoning and trade-off analysis in analog IC design automation

Any equation-based design automation system requires some form of post-simulation circuit adjustment phase. ISAID is an analog design automation system which facilitates both circuit generation and post-simulation circuit correction. Circuit generation is performed in a hierarchical manner and circuit correction is achieved by novel qualitative reasoning methods, as described here. The qualitative manipulation of simulation results and the analysis of tradeoffs´ can be performed, which can also be used to provide insight to the designer. After a short overview of ISAID and the circuit generator, the authors focus on the circuit corrector and describe the principles for qualitative circuit correction and adjustment estimation and provide several examples