Sample efficient evolutionary algorithm for analog circuit design

In this post, we share some recent promising results regarding the applications of Deep Learning in analog IC design. While this work targets a specific application, the proposed methods can be used in other black box optimization problems where the environment lacks a cheap/fast evaluation procedure. So let's break down how the analog IC design process is usually done, and then how we incorporated deep learning to ease the flow. The intent of analog IC design is to build a physical manufacturable circuit that processes electrical signals in the analog domain, despite all sorts of noise sources that may affect the fidelity of signals. Usually analog circuit design starts off with topology selection.