An academic EDA suite for the full-custom design of mixed-mode integrated circuits

This paper proposes a free and complete EDA framework for teaching CMOS full-custom design of mixed-signal integrated circuits. The presented set of EDA tools and associated physical design kit should allow students to gain hands-on experience on schematic entry, both at system and circuit levels, HDL system simulation and block specification, automatic circuit optimization, PCell-based netlist-driven layout, interactive DRC, LVS, 3D parasitics extraction, post-layout simulation and tape-out. A case study based on a ΔΣ modulator for ADC in a simple CMOS technology is supplied to illustrate the capabilities of the proposed environment. Students can easily make use of the presented EDA framework both at laboratory and at home, since all tools are available for both MS Windows and Linux platforms.