This book is a result of many years in active design work in the semiconductor industry.
I started my career as a theoretical physicist working on dense matter theory and
electromagnetic fields in an astrophysical environment. After a few years my interest
turned toward integrated circuit design, where there were also electromagnetic fields,
and I have been working in this field ever since. It is a rich environment for the study of
nature and mathematics and I am thrilled to be a part of it. As a theoretical physicist one
always tries to get a handle on experiments and observations by doing simple math-
ematical modeling, and in my stint as a postdoc in the theoretical physics group at
Caltech in the 1990s I was part of an Order of Magnitude Physics, 103c class that took
this idea to town. The students were asked to estimate things such as the amount of
rubber dumped into the air from cars on LA’s freeways and how long a grass straw
would grow in a week with a given precipitation and sunlight. The class was taught by
Professor Peter Goldreich and Professor Sterl Phinney, and it opened my eyes to the
power of estimation. In my career I have always tried to understand things by first
estimating the impact of a certain effect and then verifying it. This analysis method has
been a great help for me personally and the people I have been lucky enough to tutor.
I have also encountered many other engineers and academic professionals who are very
good at following these same principles. This book is an attempt to bring this way of
thinking about design in general and circuit design in particular to a broader audience.
I refer to the analysis method as estimation analysis, but many people use the term hand
calculations, which I find to be rather misleading. Simply put, we consider complex
problems in a way that do not require exact full solutions. The book will show that this
approach can be taken for almost any problem, be it circuit analysis, high frequency
phenomena, sampling concepts or jitter, to name a few. The scope of the book is from
simple circuit theory, familiar to most engineers, to high frequency theory with a
particular focus on integrated circuit applications, to systems such as data converters
and phase-locked loops (PLLs). The applications are intentionally fairly broad, to
illustrate the power of the techniques. What is different in this book compared with
other similar ones is a strict physical approach where all situations are modeled
carefully, often from first principles, followed by useful solutions and illustrative
relationships after some algebra. Once such a model is established one can use it as a
starting point for simulations where the simulator is used to fine-tune the design.
Author(s): Mikael Sahrling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 258
Contents......Page 7
Preface......Page 10
1.2 Principles......Page 12
1.3 Integrated Circuit Applications......Page 14
2.2 Single Transistor Gain Stages......Page 15
2.3 Two Transistor Stages......Page 29
2.5 Exercises......Page 40
2.6 References......Page 41
3.2 Five Transistor Amplifier......Page 42
3.3 Cascode Stage Amplification Using Active Feedback......Page 44
3.4 Comparator Circuit......Page 45
3.5 Cascaded Amplifier Stages......Page 55
3.7 Exercises......Page 59
3.8 References......Page 60
4.1 Introduction......Page 61
4.2 Maxwell’s Equations......Page 62
4.3 Capacitance......Page 77
4.4 Inductance......Page 83
4.5 Various High Frequency Phenomena......Page 96
4.6 Summary......Page 108
4.7 Exercises......Page 110
4.8 References......Page 111
5.1 Introduction......Page 112
5.2 Connection to PCB Designs......Page 113
5.3 Recent Progress in the Literature on Signal Integrity On-Chip......Page 114
5.4 Transmission Line Theory......Page 116
5.5 S-Parameters......Page 120
5.6 Capacitors in Integrated Circuits......Page 130
5.7 Inductors in Integrated Circuits......Page 133
5.8 Design Examples......Page 151
5.10 Exercises......Page 158
5.11 References......Page 159
6.2 Basic Simulator Principles......Page 162
6.3 Long Wavelength Simulators......Page 163
6.4 Method of Moments......Page 170
6.7 References......Page 174
7.1 Introduction......Page 176
7.2 Jitter and Phase Noise......Page 177
7.3 Phase-Locked Loops......Page 182
7.4 Voltage Controlled Oscillators......Page 194
7.5 Analog-to-Digital Converters......Page 206
7.7 Exercises......Page 242
7.8 References......Page 243
Appendix A Basic Transistor and Technology Model......Page 245
Appendix B Useful Mathematical Relationships......Page 250
Index......Page 253
