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Anadigm Automates Analog Design

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Anadigm Automates Design of Divider, Gain-Polarity Stage, and Bessel Filters in Latest FPAA EDA Software
CAMPBELL, Calif.--March 17, 2003--Designers can now point and click to implement analog dividers, complex Bessel filters, and gain-polarity stages in a drift-free, integrated silicon platform. With the latest release of the AnadigmDesigner2 EDA software for field programmable analog arrays (FPAAs), these circuit types join a growing list of analog functions for which Anadigm is automating the design and implementation process.
Widely used, but difficult to implement with discretes, dividers and gain-polarity stages are being provided by Anadigm as Configurable Analog Modules (CAMs) that can be customized and then implemented within a FPAA device by a simple drag-and-drop process in AnadigmDesigner2 EDA software. As part of the same release, the AnadigmFilter tool has now been enhanced to automate the design and implementation of both low-pass and high-pass Bessel filters.
"At Anadigm we're committed to adding more functions on a regular basis to our CAM library as well as new features to our EDA tool suite," said Suhel Dhanani, senior product marketing manager at Anadigm. "These latest additions allow more functions to be integrated within an FPAA, and expand the range of applications in which FPAAs can be used."
The new AnadigmDesigner2 capabilities were added in response to feedback from Anadigm FPAA customers, which include manufacturers of a wide range of industrial, automotive, medical, automatic test equipment, instrumentation, and communication products. Each new CAM has a wide range of applications. Designers who need to implement automatic gain control circuits or ratioing functions can use the divider CAM. The automated Bessel filter can be used to implement complex filters with linear phase characteristics.
The gain-polarity stage is used in functions such as base comparators. With the release of these new functions, Anadigm has abstracted more than 20 analog functions into drag-and-droppable CAMs that reduce the design and implementation time for analog circuits from months to a matter of minutes.
With the Bessel filter option, designers now have a choice of five approximations in AnadigmFilter, including Butterworth, Chebyshev, Inverse Chebyshev, and Elliptic. AnadigmDesigner2 is the first EDA product on the market to allow designers to develop their designs using FPAAs that can be reconfigured by the microcontroller in real time to change the function they perform within a system or to adapt on the fly to maintain precision despite system degradation and aging.
Typical applications for FPAAs designed with AnadigmDesigner2 include signal conditioning, closed-loop control, and data acquisition. Click here for free download of a trial copy of AnadigmDesigner2. A complete evaluation kit with a development board, entry-level software, and updated documentation is now available for $499.

Anadigm is finally getting some traction with its field programmable analog arrays (FPAAs). The company reports that it has some 80 customers designing with its devices, and that some of these are in production.
Current customers give three primary reasons for using Anadigm's FPAAs. The most prevalent reason is the reconfigurability of the device that allows users to consolidate a number of different boards into a single-board design.
The example given is that of a DSL board that requires different impedance levels to match the lines in the different parts of the world. In this case, Anadigm's customer was able to produce a single board, and used the FPAA device to set the impedance during the final test.
The second most important reason for FPAA use was the ability to eliminate a number of discrete devices and thereby save considerable board space. The third reason was the precision and reliability of the device. The switched-capacitor design insures that almost no drift occurs. The reconfigurable nature of the parts allows them to be used in adaptive control systems. Controlling the output power and wavelength of a communications laser driving a fiber-optics channel is an adaptive control application that uses an FPAA. The result of this design has been to extend the useful life of the laser diode.
The four applications identified by Anadigm are complex/programmable filtering, sensor signal conditioning, general signal conditioning, and in-control loops. The company intends to introduce special tools for the sensor signal conditioning and control-loop applications.

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