Electronic circuit design

Last updated August 13, 2022

Electronic circuit design comprises the analysis and synthesis of electronic circuits.

Methods

To design any electrical circuit, either analog or digital, electrical engineers need to be able to predict the voltages and currents at all places within the circuit.^[1] Linear circuits, that is, circuits wherein the outputs are linearly dependent on the inputs, can be analyzed by hand using complex analysis. Simple nonlinear circuits can also be analyzed in this way. Specialized software has been created to analyze circuits that are either too complicated or too nonlinear to analyze by hand.

Circuit simulation software allows engineers to design circuits more efficiently, reducing the time cost and risk of error involved in building circuit prototypes. Some of these make use of hardware description languages such as VHDL or Verilog.

Network simulation software

More complex circuits are analyzed with circuit simulation software such as SPICE and EMTP.

Linearization around operating point

When faced with a new circuit, the software first tries to find a steady state solution wherein all the nodes conform to Kirchhoff's Current Law and the voltages across and through each element of the circuit conform to the voltage/current equations governing that element.

Once the steady state solution is found, the software can analyze the response to perturbations using piecewise approximation, harmonic balance or other methods.

Piece-wise linear approximation

Software such as the PLECS interface to Simulink uses piecewise linear approximation of the equations governing the elements of a circuit. The circuit is treated as a completely linear network of ideal diodes. Every time a diode switches from on to off or vice versa, the configuration of the linear network changes. Adding more detail to the approximation of equations increases the accuracy of the simulation, but also increases its running time.

Synthesis

Simple circuits may be designed by connecting a number of elements or functional blocks such as integrated circuits.

More complex digital circuits are typically designed with the aid of computer software. Logic circuits (and sometimes mixed mode circuits) are often described in such hardware description languages as HDL, VHDL or Verilog, then synthesized using a logic synthesis engine.^[2]

Related Research Articles

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The VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL) is a hardware description language (HDL) that can model the behavior and structure of digital systems at multiple levels of abstraction, ranging from the system level down to that of logic gates, for design entry, documentation, and verification purposes. Since 1987, VHDL has been standardized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as IEEE Std 1076; the latest version of which is IEEE Std 1076-2019. To model analog and mixed-signal systems, an IEEE-standardized HDL based on VHDL called VHDL-AMS has been developed.

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In computer engineering, a hardware description language (HDL) is a specialized computer language used to describe the structure and behavior of electronic circuits, and most commonly, digital logic circuits.

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Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together in a design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Since a modern semiconductor chip can have billions of components, EDA tools are essential for their design; this article in particular describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits (ICs).

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Formal equivalence checking process is a part of electronic design automation (EDA), commonly used during the development of digital integrated circuits, to formally prove that two representations of a circuit design exhibit exactly the same behavior.

Small-signal modeling is a common analysis technique in electronics engineering used to approximate the behavior of electronic circuits containing nonlinear devices with linear equations. It is applicable to electronic circuits in which the AC signals are small relative to the DC bias currents and voltages. A small-signal model is an AC equivalent circuit in which the nonlinear circuit elements are replaced by linear elements whose values are given by the first-order (linear) approximation of their characteristic curve near the bias point.

OrCAD Systems Corporation was a software company that made OrCAD, a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation (EDA). The software is used mainly by electronic design engineers and electronic technicians to create electronic schematics, perform mixed-signal simulation and electronic prints for manufacturing printed circuit boards. OrCAD was taken over by Cadence Design Systems in 1999 and was integrated with Cadence Allegro since 2005.

PLECS is a software tool for system-level simulations of electrical circuits developed by Plexim. It is especially designed for power electronics but can be used for any electrical network. PLECS includes the possibility to model controls and different physical domains besides the electrical system.

Quite Universal Circuit Simulator (Qucs) is a free-software electronics circuit simulator software application released under GPL. It offers the ability to set up a circuit with a graphical user interface and simulate the large-signal, small-signal and noise behaviour of the circuit. Pure digital simulations are also supported using VHDL and/or Verilog.

A linear circuit is an electronic circuit which obeys the superposition principle. This means that the output of the circuit F(x) when a linear combination of signals ax₁(t) + bx₂(t) is applied to it is equal to the linear combination of the outputs due to the signals x₁(t) and x₂(t) applied separately:

Flow to HDL tools and methods convert flow-based system design into a hardware description language (HDL) such as VHDL or Verilog. Typically this is a method of creating designs for field-programmable gate array, application-specific integrated circuit prototyping and digital signal processing (DSP) design. Flow-based system design is well-suited to field-programmable gate array design as it is easier to specify the innate parallelism of the architecture.

Electronic circuit simulation uses mathematical models to replicate the behavior of an actual electronic device or circuit. Simulation software allows for modeling of circuit operation and is an invaluable analysis tool. Due to its highly accurate modeling capability, many colleges and universities use this type of software for the teaching of electronics technician and electronics engineering programs. Electronics simulation software engages its users by integrating them into the learning experience. These kinds of interactions actively engage learners to analyze, synthesize, organize, and evaluate content and result in learners constructing their own knowledge.

Aldec, Inc. is a privately owned electronic design automation company based in Henderson, Nevada that provides software and hardware used in creation and verification of digital designs targeting FPGA and ASIC technologies.

VHDL-AMS is a derivative of the hardware description language VHDL. It includes analog and mixed-signal extensions (AMS) in order to define the behavior of analog and mixed-signal systems.

MyHDL is a Python-based hardware description language (HDL).

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to electronics:

References

↑ Kularatna, Nihal (2017-12-19). Electronic Circuit Design: From Concept to Implementation. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-4200-0790-9.
↑ Tuna, Murat; Fidan, Can Bülent (2016-12-01). "Electronic circuit design, implementation and FPGA-based realization of a new 3D chaotic system with single equilibrium point". Optik. 127 (24): 11786–11799. Bibcode:2016Optik.12711786T. doi:10.1016/j.ijleo.2016.09.087. ISSN 0030-4026.