Analog Mixed Signal

The February issue of DACeZine offers a varied collection of articles.  Although many deal with issues in analog and mixed-signal design, you will also find articles on other subjects.  The goal is to continue to prove that the DAC ecosystem is the primary environment to stimulate introspection, creativity and peer discussions within the electronics design community.

The contributed technical article by Dr. Zakir Hussain Syed of Infinism provides a short discussion of the problems and solutions approaches in the mixed-signal area.  Infinism is one of the EDA companies are trying to develop solutions that will maintain the accuracy of SPICE while significantly decreasing the execution time required.

In another article, Martin Barnasconi, chair of the AMS working group of OSCI, provides the justification, methodology and goals of the working group.  Extensions of SystemC to support AMS designs will join those for VHDL and Verilog in supporting the design and verification of analog and mixed-signal design at a higher level of abstraction.

The article by John Tanner provides material for a review of various aspects of EDA, the running of a small company, and the requirements of analog and mixed-signal circuit designers.  Although some of the subjects that it covers may have been discussed in other articles, I found it helpful to visit the problems in one short article.

Bob Smith, an EDA veteran, gives, in his article, a view of EDA from what I dare to call a parallel universe: that of the winemaker.  The article not only provides a detail description of the wine making process, but also shows that the process of bringing an idea to completion has many common steps, regardless of the application area.

This issue also contains an insight into the inner workings of DAC.  Tiffany Sparks and Yatin Trivedi have described the process of developing the Pavilion Panels program in great detail.  In past years, I have heard people stating that the panels process was mysterious, and even parochial.  As you will see from the article it is nothing like that, but involves hard work and dedication on the part of the volunteers that are the members of the committee.

The mixed-signal directory of vendors showcases the offerings of DAC exhibitors in this area, and is intended as a resource for DACeZine readers.  The editorial staff thanks Saket Gupta, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, for his assistance in assembling the list, and appreciates the dedication and care Mr. Gupta has exercised in this task.

Three news articles about DAC complete this month's issue.  One presents the list of members of both the Technical Panels and the Pavilion Panels committees.  The second describes the outstanding response from the DAC community to the Technical Program.  This year the number of papers and panel proposals were a significant increase from last year, an indication that the spirit of technological research and innovation in our industry remains vibrant.  The last article describes a focus on one of the major strengths of DAC, the exhibit, and how we are working to expand the value of exhibiting at DAC.

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