Intent-leveraged optimization of analog circuits via homotopy

This paper proposes a circuit optimization approach that can ease the computational burden on the simulation-based circuit optimizers by leveraging simple design equations that reflect the designer´s intent. The technique is inspired by continuation methods (a.k.a. homotopy) in numerical analysis where a hard problem is solved by constructing an easier problem first and gradually refining its solution to that of the hard problem. In a circuit optimization context, the designer´s simplified equations for the circuit serve as the easier problem. These simplified design equations are easy to write as they need not be completely accurate and have intuitive, well-understood solutions. Nonetheless, in several circuit examples, it was found that the designer´s equations serve as better guidance than the conventional, fixed-point equations. As a result, the proposed approach demonstrates the better convergence to the desired solution with less computational efforts.