Systems and methods for testing and manufacturing large-scale,

Abstract

Systems and methods that include a homotopy technique are employed to find a DC operating point of large-scale, transistor-based, nonlinear circuits�, allowing such circuits to be designed, tested and manufactured!. The systems and methods use arclength continuation together with a new two-phase embedding of .lambda. into equations describing the circuits. One of the systems includes: (1) a DC operating point determination circuit (or determinor) that receives parameters relating to the nonlinear circuit into a globally-convergent model thereof and embeds therein at least two arclength continuation parameters relating to driving-point and transfer characteristics of a transistor in the nonlinear circuit�, the DC operating point determination circuit capable of adjusting the arclength continuation parameters to cause the globally-convergent model to converge on a DC operating point for the nonlinear circuit! and (2) an analysis circuit, coupled to the DC operating point determination circuit, that employs the DC operating point to determine an overall response characteristic of the nonlinear circuit