Abstract. The current work is an answer to the problem of designing switched-current (SI) circuits, which is usually a complex issue in the field of microelectronics. The mentioned task is a source of many mistakes and takes a lot of time for designers, therefore authors of the article decided to propose a software solution. This article presents an environment for design automation of analogue circuits in the switched currents technique. It points out the utility advantages of the described tools, which make the work of a VLSI designer much easier, moreover offering a possibility to parameterise the design process considering power consumption, chip area usage and its working speed. It also presents results of an automatic generation of a filter pair circuit, as well as a DCT circuit -automatically generated with the proposed SI-Studio software tools.

The paper illustrates a practical example of technology migration applied to the colour space converter realized in CMOS technology. The element has analogue excitation and response signals expressed in current mode. Such converter may be incorporated into an integrated vision sensor for preconditioning acquired image data. The idea of a computer software tool supporting the automated migration and design reuse is presented as the major contribution. The mentioned tools implement the Hooke-Jeeves direct search method for performing the multivariable optimization. Our purpose is to ensure transferring the circuit between usable fabrication technologies and preserving its functional properties. The colour space converter is treated as the case study for performance evaluation of the proposed tool in cooperation with HSPICE simulation software. The original CMOS technology files for Taiwan semiconductor (TSMC) plant were utilized for the research. The automated design migration from 180 nm into 90 nm resulted with obtaining compact IC layout characterized by a smaller area and lower power consumption. The paper is concluded with a brief summary that proves the usability of the proposed tool in designing CMOS cells dedicated for low power image processing.

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SUMMARYThis paper presents an approach to a low-sensitivity design strategy for switched-current (SI) filter pairs based on a gyrator-capacitor prototype circuit. On the basis of a prototype filter, an SI counterpart circuit is obtained. Tools for SI filter design automation have been developed, which make a hardware description language -analog-mixed signal synthesization for the chosen kind of circuit. The obtained SI filter is better than the filter obtained using LC ladder structures with respect to very-large-scale integration complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor chip area and power consumption.

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