Reducing the analog-digital productivity gap using time-mode signal processing

The productivity gap between analog and digital circuit design has been steadily increasingly over the past four decades of semiconductor development, largely driven by advances in digital CAD. Using a simple design productivity metric, like the number of transistor utilized per man-months for any given design, the analog team can incorporate anywhere between 10 - 100 transistors per man-months whereas the digital design team can utilize 100's of thousands or more per man-months. It is the objective of this paper to describe how time-mode signal processing can be used to reduce the analog-digital productivity gap and, in addition, consider how time-mode signal processing can assist with manufacturing considerations like analog/mixed-signal production test.