Design and development of circuit optimizer using TCl and SPECTREMDL(SPICE) interface

Digital and analog designers are always interested in automated optimization of transistor width values for customized requirements. SPICE tools are now embedded with certain options [like L-M algorithm and parametric analysis] by virtue of which automated width optimization can be performed upto a certain extent. Whereas when the optimization requirements are very specific they seem to be helpless. For customization of automation process several research had been done in past, of them the most valuable being the PSPICE and MATLAB interface. Since PSPICE has its own limitation, hence the horizon of the interface is limited. The paper proposes a novel circuit optimizer using TCL and SPECTREMDL interface. Hence, instead of using only the algorithms embedded in SPICE tools, the designer has a flexibility to write new algorithms in TCL and analyze the circuit behavior with the interface, while having the flexibility to re-optimize the circuit again and again by changing the input values with the help of designed algorithm. The interface between TCL and SPECTREMDL has been demonstrated by applying the methodology to standard Flip-Flop circuits.