FPAA empowering cooperative analog-digital signal processing

Large-scale field programmable analog array (FPAA) ICs have made analog and analog-digital signal processing techniques accessible to a much wider community. Given this opportunity, we present in this paper a framework for considering analog signal processing techniques for low-power, portable systems. These techniques have become more important given the recent recognition of the power-efficiency wall for commercial digital ICs. The discussion focuses on the framework technique required to enable analog-digital signal processing techniques. A framework is needed to enable system designers to directly develop applications into these approaches that includes considering power consumed, system complexity/area, as well as other commercial metrics. A key part of this discussion is evolving existing Simulink FPAA design tools to work with this framework such that users have a similar experience one expects with digital system design, as well as model closely experimental data at a high-level framework. The result of these techniques is pulling analog computation towards the system level development as seen in digital system design over the last 30 years.