Man or Machine — Design Automation of Delta-Sigma Modulators

This paper presents a state-of-the-art overview and recent advances on circuit and system level design methods and EDA tools for the automation and optimization of Delta-Sigma (Δ
Σ
) modulators. Main synthesis strategies and techniques are highlighted, putting emphasis on those aspects, which need to be taken into account in order to maximize the performance of Δ
Σ
converters, while keeping computational efficiency high. Based on the comparison of the approaches considered in this survey, the authors try to answer, where man or machine can come in
¹
.