SYMBOLIC NETWORK ANALYSIS-METHODS FOR PRACTICAL ANALOG INTEGRATED-CIRCUITS - A SURVEY

A comparative study of symbolic network analysis methods for analog in tegrated circuits of practical size is presented. The methods are comp ared with respect to two important criteria: 1) the running time limit s of the different algorithms used within every method and 2) the numb er of terms that are generated needlessly, i.e., generated invalid ter ms and cancelling terms. The methods are compared for several analog i ntegrated building blocks. The results indicate that conclusions about the efficiency of the different symbolic analysis methods based upon comparisons for small circuits, can be misleading. The study also allo ws the reader to make a good choice for a symbolic analysis method as the core routine of a modern symbolic analyzer with symbolic simplific ation capabilities.