Yield enhancement by means of evolutionary computation techniques

This paper undertakes the problem of parametric yield enhancement by means of evolutionary computation techniques. This subject is an extremely important element of analogue circuit CAD and only heuristic approaches are applicable, since the problem belongs to NP-hard category. This paper proposes an entirely new approach to the problem, based on evolutionary computation techniques and Monte Carlo simulations. Design guidelines for yield optimization are described. The approach is verified on benchmark examples and significant improvement, when compared with other design methods, can be observed