Improving co-design of smart sensor front-ends

In this paper authors present an improved design methodology consisting of methods and tools that are used to partially automate a task of smart sensor system design. By selecting a number of constraints and parameters of the whole sensor system (not only parameters of selected components), the application is able to generate set of results (each result is a set of components), which meet the pre-defined criteria. For example a designer selects only a range of pressure values that will be measured and an upper limit for current consumption of the whole system. The algorithm can choose combination(s) of integrated circuits according to the user defined requirements. Additionally application is able to evaluate the system performance, cost and assess element values for analog front-end circuit from pre-defined templates and provide SPICE netlist for further electric and / or thermal simulation.

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