Archive for February, 2012

This afternoon, panelists from Cypress Semiconductor, Tanner EDA, IP Extreme, Cadence and Synopsys debated the future of analog/mixed-signal at DesignCon (Santa Clara, California), in the aptly titled “Is It Time for an Analog Comeback” organized and moderated by Brian Bailey. Brian presented the case that today’s analog circuitry has come on-chip and with better tools, questioned whether analog content will increase or will the shrinking geometries cause problems for analog design. Here are some interesting perspectives from the panelists and my thoughts on what they said and as a bonus I’ve added a copy of my slides at the end.

Harold Joseph (Cypress) showed that analog interfaces, “sensor” & general purpose data converters are finding their way into mainstream micro-controllers and other generic digital processing chips. From my perspective we will see more of this as applications ramp-up and mature, for example smart-grid metering and automotive requirements. As these data converters (ADC, DAC) move into the micro-controller, the process nodes required will get smaller. The key is robustness and flexibility in these applications.

Jeff Miller from Tanner EDA presented a good summary of the deep-submicron challenges the impact analog design causing a bottleneck, similar to the points on the first slide below. Solutions to some of these challenges are presented in my slide two.

Warren Savage contradicted the panel by highlighting the OMAP5: complex general purpose digital functions rely on raw performance to differentiate. They start in very advanced nodes to keep power dissipation down and increase functionality.

Although the initial iterations are really general purpose and do not integrate pure analog content, I would say that as the product life-cycle evolves, differentiation is achieved by adding more periphery analog functions. A good example is the application processor that is being merged with the baseband or with the digital TV reception to reduce costs. These ASSPs derivatives include analog in these additional functions.

My panel contribution is captured in the two slides below – there are new challenges in developing analog/mixed-signal in 28-nm and 20-nm but these can be solved with improvements in power, area and performace. The ADC on slide 2 highlights this point.