We propose a synthesis and automatic layout method for mixed-signal circuits with high regularity. As the first step of this research, a resistive digital-to-analog converter (RDAC) is presented. With a size calculation routine, the area of this RDAC is minimized while satisfying the required matching precision without any optimization loops. We propose to partition the design into slices comprising of both analog and digital cells. These cells are programmed to be synthesized as similar as custom P-Cells based on the calculation above, and automatically laid out to form one slice cell. To synthesize digital circuits, without using digital standard cell library, we propose a versatile unit digital block consisting of 8 transistors. With one or several blocks, the transistors' interconnections are programmed in the units to realize various logic gates. By using this block, the slice shapes are aligned so that the layout space in between the slices are minimized. The proposed mixed-signal slice-based partition facilitates the place-and-route of the whole RDAC. The post-layout simulation shows that the generated 9-bit RDAC achieves 1GHz sampling frequency, -0.11/0.09 and -0.30/0.75 DNL and INL, respectively, 3.57mW power consumption, and 0.0038mm2 active area.

A systematic method is introduced to the computational synthesis of CMOS voltage followers (VFs). The method is divided in three steps: generation of the small-signal circuitry by selection of nullators to model the behavior of a VF, and addition of norators to form nullator-norator joined-pairs; generation of the bias circuitry by addition of ideal biases according to the properties of nullators and norators; and synthesis of the joined-pairs by MOSFETs, and of the current-biases by CMOS current mirrors. It is shown that the proposed synthesis method has the capability to generate already known and new CMOS VF topologies.