Series 11 – Episode 8 – A guide to analogue IP

Agile Analog has been around since 2017 and the company aims to transform how analogue semiconductor circuits are designed.

Back in the late 80s and 90s, the way engineers designed digital circuitry was really transformed. “Nobody now really creates digital circuits by hand. They almost all go through RTL and synthesis,” notes Morrison.

The demand for analogue technology is growing every year, and has been estimated to be valued at $83.2 billion in 2022 according to IC Insights’ 2022 McClean Report

“Analogue IP or analogue intellectual property is the design and circuits of analogue blocks of systems,” explains Morrison. “The world around us is analogue. The sound we hear is analogue in nature, the words we speak are analogue and the light we see from our television is analogue. So, there’s a lot of interaction with the analogue world and almost every IC contains some analogue.”

Today, chip designers are facing three areas of challenges.

“One is that the time to market is getting shorter and shorter, so the design cycles are getting quicker and that means you have to do more in less time,” said Morrison. “Another area that is challenging, I would say particularly from an analogue perspective, is the traditional analogue design needing to be redesigned. And thirdly, probably the biggest challenge that we see today, as we move down the low geometries…the cost is going up very rapidly and there’s more and more corners that need to be verified to make your design safe.”

Morrison goes on to talk about how these challenges can be overcome and how analogue IP design is changing and evolving.

To hear more about analog IP and much more, you can listen to Electronic Specifier’s interview with Chris Morrison on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.