Uncovering the Influence Flow Model of Transistor Amplifiers, Its Reconstruction and Application

Multistage transistor amplifiers can be effectively modeled as network of dynamic systems where individual amplifier stages interact through couplings that are dynamic in nature. Using circuit analysis techniques, we show that a large class of transistor amplifiers can be modeled as Linear Dynamic Influence Model (LDIM), where the interactions between different amplifier stages are modeled as linear dynamic equations. LDIM modeling of transistor circuits leads to application of data-driven network reconstruction techniques to characterize stage interactions and identify faults and critical circuit parameters efficiently. Employing graphical modeling techniques and Wiener filtering, we demonstrate that the network structure can be reconstructed solely from voltage time-series measurements sampled at specified points in the circuit. The efficacy of these network reconstruction methods in multistage amplifiers is demonstrated through extensive simulations involving multiple amplifier circuits in Cadence, as well as experimental results on physical hardware. The ability to infer network structure directly from measurement data offers designers and users efficient tools to design, analyze, and debug amplifier circuits. To demonstrate the utility of network reconstruction in multistage amplifier circuits, a fault diagnosis method leveraging these techniques is presented.