Lesson plan
ASTAP
ASTAP (Advanced Statistical Analysis Program) was a general purpose analog electronic circuit simulator developed primarily for in-house use by IBM from 1973 on. It was a powerful program used for simulation of integrated circuit designs, and their analysis with statistical variations of the manufacturing process. In combination with the built-in Monte Carlo method capabilities it allowed prediction of the performance of electronic circuits under a wide range of material parameters and temperatures. ASTAP was designed to run on IBM Mainframe computers. Its algorithms were developed by IBM electrical engineers, especially Robert Brayton, Gary Hachtel, and Fred Gustavson. Unlike SPICE, which used Modified nodal analysis (MNA) to form the system of circuit equations, ASTAP instead used sparse tableau approach (STA) to construct and solve a sparse matrix. The sparse tableau formulation produced very large, very sparse matrices which required special techniques to solve efficiently, even at that time. The advantage of STA for statistical analysis is that, as originally outlined, a subsequent analysis of a circuit with randomly varied parameters only required changing entries in the matrix.
Article summary
ASTAP (Advanced Statistical Analysis Program) was a general purpose analog electronic circuit simulator developed primarily for in-house use by IBM from 1973 on. It was a powerful program used for simulation of integrated circuit designs, and their analysis with statistical variations of the manufacturing process. In combination with the built-in Monte Carlo method capabilities it allowed prediction of the performance of electronic circuits under a wide range of material parameters and temperatures. ASTAP was designed to run on IBM Mainframe computers. Its algorithms were developed by IBM electrical engineers, especially Robert Brayton, Gary Hachtel, and Fred Gustavson. Unlike SPICE, which used Modified nodal analysis (MNA) to form the system of circuit equations, ASTAP instead used sparse tableau approach (STA) to construct and solve a sparse matrix. The sparse tableau formulation produced very large, very sparse matrices which required special techniques to solve efficiently, even at that time. The advantage of STA for statistical analysis is that, as originally outlined, a subsequent analysis of a circuit with randomly varied parameters only required changing entries in the matrix.
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.