Automatic Synthesis, Placement, and Routing of an Amplifier Circuit by Means of Genetic Programming

The complete design of a circuit typically includes the tasks of creating the circuit's placement and routing as well as creating its topology and component sizing. Design engineers perform these four tasks sequentially. Each of these four tasks is, by itself, either vexatious or computationally intractable. This paper describes an automatic approach in which genetic programming starts with a high-level statement of the requirements for the desired circuit and simultaneously creates the circuit's topology, component sizing, placement, and routing as part of a single integrated design process. The approach is illustrated using the problem of designing a 60 decibel amplifier. The fitness measure considers the gain, bias, and distortion of the candidate circuit as well as the area occupied by the circuit after the automatic placement and routing.