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Analog & Power Management

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Faster design with the right tools

Designing analog circuits requires a lot of specific expertise on the part of the developer. This know-how, sometimes referred to as “black magic”, is rather rare among electronics engineers. While digital circuits alternate between discrete states, analog circuits have an indefinite number of states in which the circuit can operate due to inputs, process tolerances, temperature and noise.

To alleviate some of the complexities of the design process and to assist designers with their task, semiconductor manufacturers offer various tools to help designers choose the right components and the right dimensions. These not only speed up the design process but can also significantly reduce the number of design errors.

These include accurate models for analog simulations, optimized models for mixed-signal simulations, thermal simulation models and tools, design sheets to facilitate tuning of circuit parameters, development tools to provide schematics and layouts, layout hints, analog peripheral libraries for MCU-based mixed-signal ICs and more.

Help with Calculations and Product Selection

This starts with relatively simple Excel or Mathcad-based tools, into which the user simply has to enter the parameters relevant for the application. The stored formulas are then used to calculate the corresponding design data.

Special online tools are also available that allow designers to create design trees very quickly and identify components for their specific requirements. Furthermore, with the use of more complex software solutions, it is possible to analyze the performance of the selected circuit configuration, continually refine the design and get assistance for creating a prototype. They can be used to create complete designs (e.g. for power converters) which, in addition to a circuit diagram, also comprise the parts list with commercially available components, as well as time and frequency range simulations.

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Greater reliability in the design process thanks to simulation tools

Special simulation tools are another example of the vast range of design aids available to manufacturers. They give developers the opportunity to calculate and check the functions of their circuit designs before the hardware prototyping stage. This reduces the time required for the circuit design and minimizes design risks.

Analog simulation models of ICs have become the standard, but more and more mixed-signal simulation solutions are being introduced. Compared to analog simulation, which requires precise and accurate models of components for the design and verification of steady-state linear circuits or transitions in pulse circuits, system-level simulation of mixed-signal circuits requires modelling analog circuits with less detail, which enables faster simulation. This is the key to higher productivity when designing complex mixed-signal systems such as power converters or motor drivers.

Evaluation boards: get to know analog components in advance

Evaluation tools enable system designers to familiarize themselves with the hardware. For analog-only ICs, it may be a matter of evaluating electrical parameters beyond the data sheet and simulation, whereas for mixed-signal ICs, it may be a matter of evaluating operating modes and even configuration and programming. Semiconductor manufacturers offer evaluation boards for all manner of devices and applications, including linear circuits, power converters, integrated motor control solutions and many more.

A good template: reference designs

The semiconductor industry already provides reference designs for a number of applications. They take over a significant part of the system designer’s work by pre-collating the appropriate components for a specific application. Given that their interaction has already been tested, these reference designs provide designers with a reliable basis for constructing their own developments. Consequently, reference designs enable a fast time-to-market and lower costs, and reduce risks during the design process.

To give an example, EBV Elektronik has developed EBV BridgeSwitch MB – a complete single-phase BLDC engine control solution based on Power Integrations BridgeSwitch HV motor driver and NXP low cost MCU LPC804M. EBV BridgeSwitch MB shows the simplicity of the design with the integrated H-bridges with Power Integrations BridgeSwitch, and enables ease of evaluation and investigation of its fault reporting functions and safety functions in a real application.

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Accelerated Software Development

Semiconductor manufacturers also provide the appropriate software packages for their MCU-based mixed-signal solutions, which come with high-performance tools that help system designers to launch their products more quickly on the market. These software development kits provide a framework for developing one’s own software tools and applications. Among other things, they offer program codes, interfaces and usually instructions. A good software development kit should also include all of the basic technical components, such as editors, libraries, runtime and development environments, compilers and debuggers.

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Chip development with artificial intelligence

The development of analog circuits is highly complex and designing a chip often takes several months. The design process necessitates a great deal of experience and intuition on the part of the developers. This is where Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software can help, as it can calculate more complex mixed-signal environments. Designers are thus alerted about potential hot spots – areas on the chip that could get too hot – or
potential breakdown areas – where the field strengths become so high, that they could short circuit. The programs for this are becoming increasingly sophisticated and indispensable, for within this refinement process lies monumental economical potential.
Various companies are already working on developing tools that use artificial intelligence to assist the system designer with the development process. The point of using machine-based-learning is to further optimize energy consumption, performance and chip size. The first AI solutions are reported to have enabled the electricity consumption of a chip to be reduced by 25 percent – compared to a team of human designers using the latest design tools. According to industry watchers, Artificial Intelligence has the potential to considerably accelerate semiconductor development processes and give rise to new types of chip designs.

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Analog & Power Management

The era of digitalisation is ever advancing, almost as if our world were solely represented and controlled by ones and zeros. Every physical variable – be it an audio signal, temperature, voltage – is an analog value.

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Lower Energy Consumption

New technologies are helping to considerably reduce the energy consumption of analog chips, which results in extended battery life and easier integration.

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Simpler System Design

Innovative packaging solutions and the integration of different functions into one building block make the system design more efficient.

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Why the Digital World Needs Analog Semiconductors?

Analog semiconductor components are important technological precursors, as they enable many state-of-the art digital devices to be developed in the first place.