Mixed-mode simulation and verification: status and future

The design and verification of integrated circuits has reached the limit of available technologies, in both the analog and digital simulation domains. The interactions that need to be modeled for VLSI circuits cannot be met completely with the digital logic paradigm because many of the desired characteristics are of an analog nature. The effects of charge sharing, bootstrap capacitances, and critical timing paths all need to be simulated with analog accuracy. The ability to simultaneously simulate the analog and digital portions of an integrated circuit is beyond the abdties of any single analog or digital simulator. The analog pomons are often switchedcapacitor filters or other types of signal processing circuits.