Statistical circuit design: Nonlinear circuits and statistical design

The design of linear circuits requires the designer to consider element tolerances, distributions and correlations and how they interact with proposed manufacturing test limits and service conditions such as temperature and aging. Analytical methods can be used in a limited number of cases; simulation methods using large modern computers permit study of more complex design problems. The principal themes of this paper are the designer's needs for computational assistance and the ways in which computer programs may be organized to meet these needs. Two computer programs for this purpose are described. One is a general-purpose analysis program for large networks having any topology. The other is a more specialized program suitable for “biquad” networks which may be used as building blocks to form a variety of filter and equalizer networks.