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Wich is the best sofware for electronic simulation?

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dorinelu

Jan 1, 1970
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Wich is the best sofware for electronic simulation?
 
K

Kevin Aylward

Jan 1, 1970
0
dorinelu said:
Wich is the best sofware for electronic simulation?

No such thing as "best".

Download the demos from companies and see which one you like the most.

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.
 
P

Paul Burridge

Jan 1, 1970
0
Wich is the best sofware for electronic simulation?

LT Spice is very highly regarded among the cognoscenti here and it's
free from those great guys at Linear Technology: www.linear.com

Multisim, OTOH, has probably the worst cost/benefit ratio and is best
avoided.
 
L

Leon Heller

Jan 1, 1970
0
dorinelu said:
Wich is the best sofware for electronic simulation?

SIMetrix SPICE has a very good reputation, it comes with the Pulsonix
software I use.

Leon
 
C

Chaos Master

Jan 1, 1970
0
cat /etc/passwd | grep Leon Heller returns:
SIMetrix SPICE has a very good reputation, it comes with the Pulsonix
software I use.

I second this. I have used SIMetrix Intro, enough for small projects. Very
good. Just a few problems (it sometimes gave me access violations, if the AVG
anti-virus was running in the background), *but I think they were caused by my
PC*.

[]s
 
L

L2

Jan 1, 1970
0
Wich is the best sofware for electronic simulation?

I have used LTSpice for a few months now and it is quite good (and the
performance to price ratio is infinite!). It has a good help file and
there are lots of information, discussions and help available in their
group (LTSpice at groups.yahoo.com). Of course, the S/W to run Spice
is just the tip of the iceberg, the biggest problem is to find or
construct models for what you need, understand them, refine them...
Regards,
L2
 
L

ldg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Which is the best sofware for electronic simulation?

This is really a large question. There are many analog and digital
simulators, each optimized for a specific market segment.

For instance, IC designers have used Hspice or Smartspice for smaller
circuits where accuracy is really important. This class of simulator
is analog-only. (There are many others.)
http://www.silvaco.com/products/circuit_simulation/smartspice.html
http://www.synopsys.com/products/mixedsignal/hspice/hspice.html


Full chip simulators are now available that use various schemes to
reduce simulation time. From what I've seen, these simulators are
really expensive and beyond my needs. Nanosim is an example:
http://www.synopsys.com/products/mixedsignal/nanosim/

There are mixed mode simulators that allow both analog and
intermediate sized logic circuits to be simulated simultaneously.
Pspice AD is a good example of this. Since Pspice was bought by Orcad
and Orcad was bought by Cadence, this simulator has stayed mostly
targeted at board work, though I've used it in the past for IC design,
as have others.
There are many others in this category as well, including SIMetrix
SPICE. http://www.catena.uk.com/index.html

Many of these simulators have been created by combining Berkeley
spice and a digital simulator called Xspice that was created by
Georgia Tech http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~mrichard/Xspice/

A high end mixed simulator example might be Cadence's Spectre
http://www.cadence.com/products/custom_ic/spectre/index.aspx

Yet another interesting mixed mode simulator is the Smash simulator by
Dolphin: http://www.dolphin.fr/medal/smash/smash_overview.html . This
one does vhdl and verilog while simultaneously doing detailed analog
simulations.


Saber is sort of in a class by itself in that it can easily simulate
physical as well as electrical/electronic devices.
http://www.synopsys.com/products/mixedsignal/saber/saber_ds.html
It can, for instance, simulate entire car systems where a mechanical
device operates a sensor, which then is processed by electronics, then
drives a mechanical actuator. It would also be great for modeling
MEMs devices since both the physical device and interface circuits can
be modeled at once. It also does mixed mode. New models are easily
made using its MAST programming language. Since both Saber and Hspice
were owned by Avant!, the actual hspice models have been ported to it,
making it even more acceptable for low level IC design. I used this
program years ago to design IR focal planes. This is a great
simulator, but expensive.

I'm not a user of pure digital simulators, but I'm sure others in this
group are knowledgeable in this area.

Many here use the free LTspice simulator. It has a great user
interface and the support is unusually good. It's primary purpose is
for board level work, allowing Linear Technology customers to easily
simulate circuits with Linear Technology devices, though the author's
intention clearly is beyond this. The user interface is so good I've
often wished it would front-end for other simulators I use in my work
(hspice, smartspice). To me, however, the simulator itself doesn't
quite meet my needs for doing IC design. I'd use it for small
circuits and board level work.

Hope any of this helps. Much of this is subjective, and everyone has
their own opinion.

Regards,
Larry
 
P

Paul Burridge

Jan 1, 1970
0
Many here use the free LTspice simulator. It has a great user
interface and the support is unusually good. It's primary purpose is
for board level work, allowing Linear Technology customers to easily
simulate circuits with Linear Technology devices, though the author's
intention clearly is beyond this.

I agree entirely. And the free and generous support of the head
developer on this group - thought it can't of course be taken for
granted - is another bloody good reason to look no further.
 
K

Kevin Aylward

Jan 1, 1970
0
ldg said:
This is really a large question. There are many analog and digital
simulators, each optimized for a specific market segment.
Many of these simulators have been created by combining Berkeley
spice and a digital simulator called Xspice that was created by
Georgia Tech http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~mrichard/Xspice/

This is not really an accurate description. XSpice *is* already the
combined Berkeley spice with Xtensions that add digital capabilities.
That is, there is not a separate Georgia Tech digital engine that was
combined with a separate Berkeley spice. XSpice is not a "digital
simulator". It is a mixed mode simulater.

Saber is sort of in a class by itself in that it can easily simulate
physical as well as electrical/electronic devices.

As can any generic spice, so its not.
http://www.synopsys.com/products/mixedsignal/saber/saber_ds.html
It can, for instance, simulate entire car systems where a mechanical
device operates a sensor, which then is processed by electronics, then
drives a mechanical actuator. It would also be great for modeling
MEMs devices since both the physical device and interface circuits can
be modeled at once. It also does mixed mode. New models are easily
made using its MAST programming language. Since both Saber and Hspice
were owned by Avant!, the actual hspice models have been ported to it,
making it even more acceptable for low level IC design. I used this
program years ago to design IR focal planes. This is a great
simulator, but expensive.

This is not specific to Sabre at all. *Any* and all spices have behavial
modelling, e.g. B sources that allows pretty much any function to be
implemented. In fact, spices like isspice have full scripting with
constructs such as if else.
I'm not a user of pure digital simulators, but I'm sure others in this
group are knowledgeable in this area.

Many here use the free LTspice simulator. It has a great user
interface
?

and the support is unusually good.
It's primary purpose is
for board level work, allowing Linear Technology customers to easily
simulate circuits with Linear Technology devices, though the author's
intention clearly is beyond this. The user interface is so good I've
often wished it would front-end for other simulators I use in my work
(hspice, smartspice).
To me, however, the simulator itself doesn't
quite meet my needs for doing IC design.

What aspects are you refering to here? Obviously, I will take this
opertunity to point out that SuperSpice has quite a few i.c. specific
hooks directly built in, such as mosfet binning, and automatic worst
case reruns. I am not aware of any in the "cheap" simulaters that do
this.

SS is also set up that it can automatically drive any engine if it can
run in standard spice batch mode.
Much of this is subjective, and everyone has their own opinion.

Indeed. Mine is that SuperSpice has the best GUI in the known 3
universes.

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.
 
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