Using Verilog-AMS In Mixed-Signal Design Flows

Top Down Design

Most digital circuit designers are familiar with top-down design where you start with abstract models of hardware and work down to transistors. Verilog-AMS supports the same kind of flow for analog and mixed signal design, allowing designers to write behavioral models of blocks which need to be fleshed out later.

Bottom Up Verification

Analog circuit simulation has traditionally been a source of great pain to system verification engineers. Verilog-AMS can alleviate this problem by allowing them to use checker-board techniques with optimized behavioral models, i.e. a "SPICE level" transistor circuit can be replaced with a behavioral model which has been tuned with an optimizer to match the transistor behavior and that will greatly improve simulation throughput. The same behavioral models can be used as a means to obfuscate valuable IP when sharing designs with third parties.

-- KevinCameron - 28 Mar 2008