Design Automation for Analog: The Next Generation of Tool Challenges

The decade of the 1990s saw the first wave of practical "post-SPICE" tools for analog designs. A range of synthesis, optimization, layout and modeling techniques made their way from academic prototypes to first-generation commercial offerings. We offer some pragmatic prognostications for what the next wave might (or, more bluntly, should) focus on next, as pressure to improve AMS design productivity grows