Signal flow driven circuit analysis and partitioning technique

1. A method for generating a layout for an analog circuit design, comprising method operations of:

receiving a set of rules including one or more physical requirement rules defining rules associated with differential signal path matching, parasitic minimization parameters, and transistor mismatch data;

tracing a signal flow through a circuit netlist;

partitioning the circuit netlist into a digital portion and an analog portion; and

defining a signal flow through the analog portion of the circuit netlist based on the set of rules.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

defining a core signal portion of the analog portion and a bias circuit portion of the analog portion.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the defining a core signal portion of the analog portion is based on user input.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

defining a functional block within the analog portion based on the set of rules.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the functional block is expanded to a complex circuit.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

grouping components together based on the signal flow through the analog portion of the circuit netlist.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method operation of defining a signal flow through the analog portion of the circuit netlist includes,

identifying input pins to the analog portion;

tracing the signal flow from each of the identified input pins to corresponding output pins according to flow requirements;

subdividing the analog portion into a biasing circuit portion and a core signal portion; and

grouping common components of the core signal portion.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the method operations are embodied as program instructions on a computer readable medium.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method operation of defining a signal flow through the analog portion of the circuit netlist includes,

generating a hierarchical tree of components being grouped together based on the signal flow.

10. A method for automatic generation of an analog portion of a circuit for physical synthesis, comprising method operations of:

receiving a set of rules including one or more physical requirement rules defining rules associated with differential signal path matching, parasitic minimization parameters, and transistor mismatch data;

partitioning a netlist into a digital portion and an analog portion; and

grouping components of the analog portion together based on a signal path defined in response to the set of rules through the analog portion of the netlist.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the method operation of grouping components of the analog portion together based on a signal path trace includes,

tracing the signal path through the analog portion.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

performing pattern matching to identify differential pairs, current sources and current mirrors within the analog portion.

13. The method of claim 10 , farther comprising:

generating a hierarchical tree according to the grouping of components.

14. A system for characterizing a circuit design having an analog circuit portion and a digital circuit portion, comprising:

a rules module for storing rules, wherein the rules include physical requirement rules defining rules associated with differential signal path matching, parasitic minimization parameters, and transistor mismatch data;

a signal flow tracking module configured to trace a signal flow through the analog circuit portion; and

a unit circuit module configured to characterize structure associated with the signal flow through the analog circuit portion and determine if the characterized structure matches a unit circuit.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the unit circuit module is further configured to perform pattern matching to determine if the characterized structure matches the unit circuit.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the unit circuit module is configured to locate differential pairs, current sources, and current mirrors, and wherein the system further includes a bias circuit explorer configured to define a bias circuit hierarchy for a bias circuit of the analog circuit portion.

17. The system of claim 14 , wherein the signal flow tracking module traces signals for a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor from a gate to one of a source or a drain, from the drain to the source, and from the source to the drain.

18. The system of claim 14 , wherein the signal flow tracking module traces signals for one of a resistor or a capacitor from a first terminal to a second terminal.