High-Level Modeling of Analog Computational Elements for Signal Processing Applications

Large-scale field-programmable analog array ICs have made analog and analog-digital signal processing techniques accessible to a much wider community. Given this opportunity, we present a framework for considering analog signal processing (ASP) techniques for low-power systems. The core of this paper is the definition of an analog abstraction methodology and the creation of a library of high-level analog computation blocks. By abstracting the analog design, we ensure that users have a similar experience to what they would expect with digital design, thus empowering system-level engineers to take advantage of ASP concepts. The result of this paper is to pull analog computation toward system-level development, comparable with the trend in digital system design over the last 30 years.