A Rule-Based Expert System for the Diagnosis of Convergence Problems in Circuit Simulation

Industry standard circuit simulators use mathematical techniques that do not always guarantee a successful simulation outcome, resulting in a significant loss of productivity as the circuit designer attempts to diagnose the source of the failure. This paper addresses the problem of improving the diagnosis of circuit simulation non-convergence through computer automation of the diagnostic process. SOAR – Simulation Output Analysis and Recommendations – is the software application that implements the proposed solution to the problem. Circuit simulation convergence failure analysis heuristics can be encapsulated into a rule-based expert system environment that emulates the reasoning of experienced circuit designers. SOAR integrates expert system technology with a modern web-based framework. Utilizing a database to store and retrieve simulation information gives SOAR the ability to diagnose simulations ranging in size from gate-level circuits to full chip architectures with virtually no increase in processing time.