Mixed-Signal Blockset
Design, analyze, and simulate analog and mixed-signal systems
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Mixed-Signal Blockset provides models of components and impairments, analysis tools, and test benches for designing and verifying mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs).
You can model PLLs, data converters, and other systems at different levels of abstraction. These models can be used to simulate mixed-signal components together with complex DSP algorithms and control logic. You can customize models to include impairments such as noise, nonlinearity, jitter, and quantization effects. Rapid system-level simulation using variable-step Simulink solvers lets you debug the implementation and identify design flaws without simulating the IC at the transistor level.
With the Mixed-Signal Analyzer app you can analyze, identify trends in, and visualize mixed-signal data. The Cadence® Virtuoso ADE MATLAB Integration option lets you import databases of circuit-level simulation results into MATLAB. Alternatively, you can import a SPICE netlist and create or modify a linear, time-invariant circuit with parasitic elements extracted from the IC design. The blockset provides analysis functions for post-processing simulation results to verify specifications, fit characteristics, and report measurements.
Mixed-Signal Data Analysis
Use the Mixed-Signal Analyzer app to interactively visualize, analyze, and identify trends in mixed-signal data. The Cadence Virtuoso ADE MATLAB Integration option lets you import database simulation results into MATLAB.
Phase-Locked Loop Design
Design and simulate phase-locked loops (PLLs) at the system level. Typical architectures include integer-N PLLs with single or dual modulus prescalers and fractional-N PLLs with accumulators or delta-sigma modulators. Verify and visualize the open-loop and closed-loop responses of your designs.
ADC and DAC Design
Design and simulate analog-to-digital (ADC) and digital-to-analog (DAC) data converters at the system level. Typical architectures include flash and successive approximation register (SAR) ADCs as well as binary weighted and segmented DACs.
Phase Noise and Jitter
Model aperture jitter in ADCs and specify arbitrary phase noise profiles in the frequency domain for VCOs and PLLs. Visualize the effects with the Eye Diagram block.
Measurements and Testbenches
Measure the lock time, phase noise profile, and operating frequency of PLLs. Characterize the performance of building blocks such as VCOs, PFDs, and charge pumps. Measure AC and DC characteristics and aperture jitter of ADCs.
Behavioral Models
Design your mixed-signal system using building blocks such as charge pumps, loop filters, phase frequency detectors (PFDs), voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), clock dividers, and sampling clock sources, among others. You can further refine analog models at a lower abstraction level with Simscape Electrical.
Product Resources:
“In the past, we didn’t know how well our designs would handle jitter until we tested them on the chip. Now that we run system-level simulations with discrete- and continuous-time models in Simulink, we have confidence that when we tape out a chip it’s going to work.”
