About ProMOST
ChipDesignWorks' ProMOST is a single transistor dimensioning tool targeting analog and RF circuit designers, mainly for CMOS technologies. ProMOST is meant to be used as fast desktop calculator that lets designers quickly estimate optimum bias settings and optimum device sizes, per device. This results in extreme fast designing and dimensioning (or porting) circuits, or in extremely quickly identify bottlenecks in your design. ProMOST lets you
- calculate operating point information for specific bias settings, device sizes, temperature, ...
- calculate dimensions or bias conditions given a set of target performance metrics
- perform constrained or unconstrained sweeps to allow you to optimize dimensions and bias conditions for optimum performance
- calculate AC properties and RF properties and properties such as OIP, IIP, harmonic content, ...
ProMOST supports many transistor models, including many MOS11, PSP and BSIM models and compound models (consisting of at least one transistor, diodes, passives, ...). ProMOST is developed for use in industry, and as such currently used within a number of major electronics companies and design houses worldwide. ProMOST software runs on Linux machines, either stand-alone or integrated in some IC design suites.
ProMOST allows fast optimization of circuits, speeds up the design phase for circuit and can (especially in later design stages) be operated in tandem with conventional circuit simulators. Our goal is to significantly speed up the design process, and provide insight to the circuit designer. This speed aspect is also reflected in the fact that ProMOST does not have a "calculate" or "run" button: everything is calculated (almost) directly after changing a setting, sweep mode, operating condition....
ProMOST requires and further improves designers' knowledge on target functioning and target performance of a transistor in a circuit schematic. This may be its function as current source, with voltage headroom limitations and requirements on noise, output impedance and current. Using these constraints, ProMOST enables a designer to quickly optimize this transistor.
The design speed improvement using ProMOST is fourfold.
Firstly, breaking down a circuit in smaller parts significantly speeds up
designing and dimensioning/optimizing transistors. This is fundamental:
optimizing or dimensioning a circuit consisting of N (unique) transistors,
where each transistor has M parameters to optimize, yields an
MN-dimensional non-linear optimization problem.
Using ProMOST, the N transistors are optimized one-by-one,
which is much easier and much faster.
Secondly, using ProMOST for a first phase of dimensioning/optimization
the initial design in the circuit simulator will be close to optimum.
Thirdly, ProMOST runs the actual model in a number of background solvers
(ac, op, dc, noise, ...) and hence gives results that match those of
your circuit simulator, with typical response times well below 1 second.
Fourthly, working your way through optimizing/dimensioning single
transistors can efficiently pinpoint bottlenecks for performance in
your circuit design.
ProMOST is (by default) operated from a GUI that lets you select the process, transistor type, corner and temperature.
ProMOST comes with add-ins that show more in-depth or more advanced sweeps and thereby lets designers optimize also for those properties. This includes properties such as distortion, IIP, OIP, s-parameters and more.
News & updates
On average every year we deploy an update of ProMOST, with bug fixes, added features, added transistor models, or with performance enhancements. A full update log is provided with each software distribution package.