AnadigmPID, an electronic design automation (EDA) tool, automates development of analog proportional, integral, derivative (PID) control loops. The company reports that its AnadigmPID tool reduces to minutes the time required to design and implement one of the most common types of control circuits in industrial, medical, and communications applications. The tool allows users to build an analog PID control loop on an integrated silicon platform by merely specifying the top-level control coefficients. Once designed and simulated, the controller circuit can be immediately downloaded to a field programmable analog array (FPAA) device for testing and validation.

PID control loops are used in many applications, including motor control, tunable lasers, level and flow control in chemical processes, and temperature control. Until now, however, their design required considerable expertise in analog design techniques, as well as an intimate knowledge of the process being controlled. AnadigmPID abstracts the analog design process to the functional level, so system designers only need to specify the top-level control coefficients. The specified control circuit is implemented automatically on a drift-free, precise, integrated silicon platform.

In what the firm says is another industry first, the implemented control subsystem can be controlled in real time by the embedded system processor, allowing users to build control loops with coefficients that adjust as the system moves from start-up to quiescent. Benefits include improvement in system performance and new opportunities for electronics manufacturers to differentiate their systems with innovative control circuits. www.anadigm.com

• Fully automates development of analog PID control loops
• Reduces to minutes the time required to design and implement most common types of control circuits
• Simplifies PID design for motor control, tunable lasers, level and flow control