About Me

Where theory meets the silicon

Hi, I’m Rohit Kogekar.

By day, I work as a Layout Engineer at Synopsys. I spend my time navigating the physical realities of high-speed SerDes blocks and wrestling with the complexities of advanced semiconductor technologies like FinFETs and GAAFETs.

By night (and generally whenever I have a spare moment), I am deepening my understanding of the "why" behind the "how" as a Master’s student in VLSI Design at BITS Pilani.

Welcome to analogdesign.blog.

Why This Blog Exists

I started this blog because, after six years in the industry, I realized that the best engineers are the ones who can speak two languages: Circuit Design and Physical Layout.

Often, these two worlds operate in silos. Designers live in the ideal world of schematic simulations, while layout engineers live in the geometric reality of DRCS and LDEs. But the magic—and the disaster—happens in the middle.

This blog is my digital notebook for exploring the nuances, tricks, and hidden traps of Analog Design.

While I have a strong background in layout using tools like Synopsys Custom Compiler, my current focus is on the pure circuit design aspect. I am fascinated by how a theoretical equation translates into a working circuit, and conversely, how physical constraints should dictate the initial design choices.

The "Netlist vs. Reality" Philosophy

You will often hear me say that what finally tapes out is the GDS, not the netlist.

However, this isn't just a blog about clearing DRCs. It is about better design. It is about understanding that a differential pair isn't just two symbols on a white background—it's a physical structure susceptible to stress effects, thermal gradients, and parasitic capacitance.

Here, I explore:

• Design Nuances: The small tweaks in circuit topology that make a massive difference in final performance.
• Layout-Aware Design: How to design your circuits now so they don't fail later when they hit the layout team.
• The Learning Curve: My honest take on academic concepts, derivations, and the "lightbulb moments" I experience during my M.Tech studies.

Who This Is For

This blog is for the students wrestling with the fundamentals of MOSFET operation, and for the professionals who want to bridge the gap between their schematics and the silicon.

I believe that even after years in the industry, we are all still students of physics. The technology keeps shrinking (hello, GAAFETs), the margins get tighter, and the physics gets weirder. If we stop learning, we stop working.

So, whether you are here to debug a specific circuit issue, learn a new design trick, or just commiserate over a simulation that refuses to converge, I’m glad you stopped by.

Let’s build something that actually works.