A symbolic regression-based modelling strategy of AC/DC rectifiers for RFID applications

•The symbolic-regression-based modelling of electronic circuits is proposed.•The AC/DC rectifier models and modelling strategy for RFID applications is presented.•Excellent generalisation properties have been demonstrated on three CMOS test cases.•The maximum achieved simulation speedup factor is 3.84E6.•Proposed modelling strategy is intended for RFID designers to reduce the design time.

In this paper, we present the use of symbolic regression for the black-box modelling of non-linear dynamic behaviour in the AC/DC rectifiers of radio-frequency identification (RFID) circuits. Typical simulations of an AC/DC rectifier are exceptionally slow when performed using conventional transistor-level simulations. The proposed modelling strategy is capable of modelling the transient process, i.e., the change in the output voltage as a function of time, both accurately and efficiently. The accuracy and the simulation speed are compared to the transistor-level simulations. The results show that the symbolic regression models are accurate and several orders of magnitude faster than the transistor-level models. The proposed strategy is demonstrated for rectifiers designed using 130-nm, 180-nm and 0.35-μμm CMOS process. The simulation speed-up factor of the proposed model is shown to be between 1080 and 3.84E6 times for a root-mean-square error (RMSE) below 4.8 mV.