Verifying global start-up for a Möbius ring-oscillator (Q479839)

An efficient algorithm for finding DC equilibria and a formal verification solution for this problem are introduced by the three authors in this paper. More specifically, it is shown that any oscillator have a zero-probability non-empty sets of states for which it fails to start properly. The premise for this statement is a result developed in this paper, a generalization of Michell and Greenstreet's ``cone argument'' [Proceedings of the third workshop on designing correct circuits, 1996, Båstad, Sweden]. The results are used to analyze a differential ring-oscillator circuit used in industrial designs and show that with probability 1 a commonly used differential ring-oscillator circuit correctly starts oscillations. Unlike classical approach used in practice for the analog design problem -- simulation using various specialized tools, which might lead to long required time -- the theoretical approach allows a more extended treatment of this issue. It is shown how reachability analysis can be combined with dynamical system analysis. The authors initially leverage their presentation on various assumptions, which in section 3.3 are then discussed and removed. The theoretical results are finally experimentally validated, with HSPICE simulations and Matlab scripts.