本論文提出一套考量製程變異與佈局效應的低壓降線性穩壓器自動化合成工具，可經由人性化的圖形介面，設計出符合需求規格的電路設計與電路佈局。為了提高良率評估的精準度，本論文以最壞情況距離(worst case distance)的概念來協助訂定良率的目標，並與布局效應一起整合到以方程式為基礎的自動化設計流程中，在自動化流程中並同時考慮誤差放大器(Error amplifier)和低壓降線性穩壓器的交互效應，以達成整體電路的最佳化，降低設計的成本。
;With the increasing demand of portable electronic devices, reducing power consumption has become the major concern to increase the battery life. The demand of power management ICs are also increasing in those electronic products. Moreover, due to the fierce market competition and the need of fast time-to-market, high design yield is also one of the major objectives in industry. Therefore, an automated synthesis tool is essential to shorten the design cycles and improve the design yield.
This thesis presents an automatic synthesis tool for low dropout regulator (LDO) considering process variations and layout effects. This tool can generate the required designs from specifications to layout through a user-friendly GUI. In order to optimize the design yield with accurate variation consideration, the worst case distance (WCD) concept is integrated into the layout-aware equation-based sizing approach in this work. The device in the low dropout linear regulator and its error amplifier are both considered in the optimization process for reducing the overall circuit cost.
The proposed sizing algorithm has been implemented in Linux with the LP solver CPLEX, incorporating with an automatic layout generation tool implemented with C/C++ and Tcl/Tk on Laker. As demonstrated in the experimental results, this synthesis tool is able to achieve the required specifications in a short time and significantly improve the design yield while the post-layout performance is still guaranteed.
