Alpinum is pleased to share that Mike Bartley, CEO of Alpinum Consulting, will be speaking at the DESN Designing the Future: Analogue Mixed Signal (AMS) event in London on 31 March 2026.
The event brings together analogue and mixed-signal architects, designers, and industry specialists to address current challenges in design, system integration, and application-driven development. Within this context, Mike’s session focuses on a key gap that continues to affect many engineering teams: how AMS designs are verified in practice, particularly within modern design verification services environments.
Verifying AMS Designs – from planning to sign-off
Mike’s session, Verifying AMS Designs, will examine practical strategies across the full verification lifecycle, including:
- Verification planning and intent definition
- Testbench design and bring-up
- Test generation approaches
- Debug and iteration cycles
- Closure and sign-off considerations
The focus is not on theory, but on methods that can be applied directly within real projects, especially where analogue behaviour and digital control interact in complex ways.
This aligns closely with the type of structured approach used in professional design verification services. Mike will also take part in the event’s Discussion & Call to Action, providing an opportunity to explore shared challenges with the wider engineering audience.
Why AMS verification remains challenging
Unlike digital verification, AMS verification does not benefit from a single dominant methodology. Teams typically need to work across multiple abstraction levels and simulation approaches.
In practice, this creates a trade-off:
- Transistor-level simulation provides high accuracy but limited scalability
- Higher-level or digital-driven approaches improve performance but reduce analogue fidelity
- Co-simulation environments attempt to balance both, but require careful modelling and a validation strategy
As designs scale, verification becomes less about running more simulations and more about choosing the right level of abstraction at the right stage.
This is also where advanced techniques, such as formal verification training, can complement simulation-based approaches, particularly by reducing ambiguity and improving coverage.
Where projects typically fail
A common issue in mixed-signal projects is that designs may appear functionally correct in simulation yet fail in silicon.
This often happens because:
- Electrical effects are not fully captured in higher-level models
- Interactions between analogue and digital domains are underspecified
- Verification effort is concentrated too late in the flow
- The testbench strategy does not reflect real operating conditions
The result is late-stage discovery of issues, increased debugging effort, and potential delays in sign-off.
Why a structured verification approach matters
For AMS designs, verification needs to be treated as a planned engineering activity, not an extension of design.
A more effective approach typically includes:
- Early definition of verification intent
- Alignment between modelling strategy and design abstraction
- Clear separation between functional checking and electrical validation
- Targeted use of detailed simulation, where it adds real value
- A structured path from initial testing to closure and sign-off
Event context
The DESN event is structured around three themes:
- The future of AMS design
- System architecture and integration
- Application drivers for AMS design
The agenda includes sessions on mixed-signal verification, system-first design, integration challenges, and emerging test approaches. Within this programme, Mike’s talk provides a focused view on how verification can be applied more effectively in real AMS projects.
Who should attend
This session is particularly relevant for:
- AMS verification engineers
- Analogue and mixed-signal designers
- Digital verification engineers working on mixed-signal systems
- Technical leads and verification managers
- Teams facing integration and sign-off challenges
Event details
Event: Designing the Future: Analogue Mixed Signal (AMS)
Date: 31 March 2026
Location: Regents University London
Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4NS
Session: Verifying AMS Designs
Speaker: Mike Bartley, CEO, Alpinum
Mike will also contribute to the Discussion & Call to Action session following the presentation.
Join the discussion
As analogue and mixed-signal complexity continues to increase, verification is becoming a key factor in project success.
This session provides a practical perspective on how verification can be applied more effectively across the AMS design flow.
View the agenda and register:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/techworks/2025943
Related Alpinum training
For organisations looking to strengthen capability beyond the event, Alpinum provides specialist training across verification and design.
👉 Explore current programmes:
https://alpinumconsulting.com/services/training/
👉 Related course:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/alpinumconsulting/2116073
Written by : Mike Bartley
Mike started in software testing in 1988 after completing a PhD in Math, moving to semiconductor Design Verification (DV) in 1994, verifying designs (on Silicon and FPGA) going into commercial and safety-related sectors such as mobile phones, automotive, comms, cloud/data servers, and Artificial Intelligence. Mike built and managed state-of-the-art DV teams inside several companies, specialising in CPU verification.
Mike founded and grew a DV services company to 450+ engineers globally, successfully delivering services and solutions to over 50+ clients.
Mike started Alpinum in April 2025 to deliver a range of start-of-the art industry solutions:
Alpinum AI provides tools and automations using Artificial Intelligence to help companies reduce development costs (by up to 90%!) Alpinum Services provides RTL to GDS VLSI services from nearshore and offshore centres in Vietnam, India, Egypt, Eastern Europe, Mexico and Costa Rica. Alpinum Consulting also provides strategic board level consultancy services, helping companies to grow. Alpinum training department provides self-paced, fully online training in System Verilog, UVM Introduction and Advanced, Formal Verification, DV methodologies for SV, UVM, VHDL and OSVVM and CPU/RISC-V. Alpinum Events organises a number of free-to-attend industry events
You can contact Mike (mike@alpinumconsulting.com or +44 7796 307958) or book a meeting with Mike using Calendly (https://calendly.com/mike-alpinumconsulting).
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