Tensor Computation: A New Framework for High-Dimensional Problems in EDA

Many critical EDA problems suffer from the curse of dimensionality, i.e. the very fast-scaling computational burden produced by large number of parameters and/or unknown variables. This phenomenon may be caused by multiple spatial or temporal factors (e.g. 3-D field solvers discretizations and multi-rate circuit simulation), nonlinearity of devices and circuits, large number of design or optimization parameters (e.g. full-chip routing/placement and circuit sizing), or extensive process variations (e.g. variability/reliability analysis and design for manufacturability). The computational challenges generated by such high dimensional problems are generally hard to handle efficiently with traditional EDA core algorithms that are based on matrix and vector computation. This paper presents "tensor computation" as an alternative general framework for the development of efficient EDA algorithms and tools. A tensor is a high-dimensional generalization of a matrix and a vector, and is a natural choice for both storing and solving efficiently high-dimensional EDA problems. This paper gives a basic tutorial on tensors, demonstrates some recent examples of EDA applications (e.g., nonlinear circuit modeling and high-dimensional uncertainty quantification), and suggests further open EDA problems where the use of tensor computation could be of advantage.Comment: 14 figures. Accepted by IEEE Trans. CAD of Integrated Circuits and System

Colored noise in oscillators. Phase-amplitude analysis and a method to avoid the Ito-Stratonovich dilemma

We investigate the effect of time-correlated noise on the phase fluctuations of nonlinear oscillators. The analysis is based on a methodology that transforms a system subject to colored noise, modeled as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, into an equivalent system subject to white Gaussian noise. A description in terms of phase and amplitude deviation is given for the transformed system. Using stochastic averaging technique, the equations are reduced to a phase model that can be analyzed to characterize phase noise. We find that phase noise is a drift-diffusion process, with a noise-induced frequency shift related to the variance and to the correlation time of colored noise. The proposed approach improves the accuracy of previous phase reduced models