Multi-domain and mixed-signal simulation of System-on-Chip embedding MEMS

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to deal with a new approach for the modelling and the simulation of mixed-signal multi-domain microsystems (MSMD) in the MATLABreg/Simulinkreg environment. MSMD are systems mixing different domains such as analog and digital electronics, radio-frequency modules, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), micro-optical-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS) and others on the same chip (system-on-chip: SoC) or in the same package (system-on-package: SoP). The heterogeneity of such systems can be seen at different abstraction levels. In fact this heterogeneity is mainly due to the multiphysic domains and also to the nature of the signals available on the chip. The creation of a virtual prototype of such microsystems is very useful because it allows to significantly shorten the design cycle and to reduce the design cost. Due to different domains, the mixed signals, the several non-linearities of the electrical components or MEMS devices and the interdependences of their subsystems, it is very complex to make a global simulation and optimization with traditional approaches and with the same simulator. Several modelling languages can be used, for example SPICE and VHDL-AMS, but one of the major disadvantages of these languages concerns the convergence of the simulation. MATLABreg/Simulinkreg is a powerful environment where several subsystems can be modelled with analytical equations, electrical circuits, etc. In this paper, we apply our approach to model and to simulate a self powered micro systems (SPMS) in this simulation environment. Several simulation results, made with different abstraction levels, have been compared and are in very good agreement. Moreover, we report in this paper cosimulation results obtained with Simulinkreg/SMASHtrade software. These results will prove the efficiency of our approach for the design of microsystems