( ESNUG 336 Item 5 ) -------------------------------------------- [11/11/99]
Subject: Ten User Letters Discussing 13 Mixed-Mode / SPICE-Oriented Tools
> I'm interested in any tool (shareware, commercial...) which can read in
> and display files in Raw SPICE format.
>
> - Martin Seifert
> Siemens / Infineon AG
From: Duncan Crowther <duncanc@euro-eda.com>
SynaptiCAD has recently added a SPICE import feature to their product
WaveFormer Pro that provides a waveform display of SPICE CSDF files.
We distribute SynaptiCAD products and you will find details at
http://www.euro-eda.com
- Duncan Crowther
EuroEDA Ltd. UK
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From: Jim_Thompson <Jim_T@analog-innovations.com>
I think most commercial versions of Spice can read CSDF files. I know
that both PSpice and SmartSpice can.
- Jim Thompson
Analog Innovations, Inc. Phoenix, Arizona
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From: "Eckhard Hennig" <hennig@itwm.uni-kl.de>
I'm not sure what you mean by "raw SPICE format", but in case you are
referring to CSDF files (Common Simulation Data Format, produced by some
SPICE derivatives such as HSPICE and PSpice), you may want to check out our
circuit analysis toolbox Analog Insydes for Mathematica. The toolbox has a
CDSF reader, which allows you to import SPICE output into Mathematica and
postprocess it in any way you like.
If your interested, there is a free evaluation version available on the web
at http://www.itwm.uni-kl.de/as/products/ai
- Eckhard Hennig
ITWM Kaiserslautern, Germany
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From: han@ice.el.utwente.nl (Han Speek)
Hi Martin,
You probably know about Nutmeg already, as this comes with the Berkeley
Spice3 (which I assume you have as this produces -- and defines -- the raw
format).
If Nutmeg is too simplistic to serve your needs, you should do a Web search
for Sigview, which was written by Lisa Pickel at the Microelectronics Center
of North Carolina (MCNC). It used to be available on their website
(mcnc.org) but it no longer seems to be there. But I've seen it on various
Linux sites. It's free, can handle a number of formats (including of course
raw Spice), and best of all, it comes with source code so you can adapt or
enhance the program to your needs :-)
I just checked - you can still pick up the Sigview distribution from MCNC,
but no longer from their website, only ftp.
It's at ftp://ftp.mcnc.org/pub/VLSI/sigview.new.tar.Z
- Han Speek
Univ. of Twente Enschede, The Netherlands
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From: Cecil Aswell <aswell@ix.netcom.com>
Look up hsview at
http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/Personal/moini/hsview/index.html
There are binaries for linux available.
- Cecil Aswell
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From: gipson@cts.com ( Larry Gipson )
I actually purchased the Intusoft suite earlier this year and returned it.
The schematic capture was totally unusable for what I do. It looked to have
a nice simulator, but I never got that far.
I would like to have the capability of doing some more advanced post
processing on my SPICE output files. For instance, I would like to be
able to do an FFT to look for linearity, or to predict the noise
performance of a switched capacitor circuit including aliasing. These
capabilities would have to be programmed in so that they would be easy
to use.
I was thinking about switching my work environment over to Linux since
it's likely more stable than WinNT. If I ever find reasonable software to
allow me to do this, I will. I would buy the latest Sparc station, but
who can afford $100K worth of software?
So far, the following software has been mentioned:
SynaptiCAD - appears to be a simple waveform viewer suitable for
digital simulation. It does have support for Win95/98 and Unix, though
the support for Linux appears thin.
PSpice - I use an older version of Pspice since I never could stand
the schematic capture tool when it went to Windows. The problem is
my version doesn't support the latest BSIM3v3 model, which everyone
appears to be going to. The waveform viewer is called Probe, and is
very limited in post processing features. On the up side, the built
in digital/mixed mode simulation capability has been extremely useful.
SmartSpice - I thought about this. They want $7k for a copy of their
software that will support twin processors in my NT box. It has no
digital simulation capability beyond the transistor level. The post
processing capability of their viewer is not clear from the web page.
No schematic capture is bundled with the simulator (perhaps a
feature?). Appears to support Unix and WinNT, but not Linux. Is it
really that much better than the free stuff from Berkeley?
Analog Insydes for Mathematica - This is interesting. I don't own
Mathematica so I can't try it. It might, however, do the post
processing I'd like in the viewer.
Nutmeg - Unix based, simple waveform viewer from what I've read. The
good part is that it's free.
Sigview - There are two programs with this name on the net. One is a
data acquisition / FFT program and the other is source code for
something totally undefined. This might be a cheap way out if I had
the time to remember how to program in C and purchased a compiler.
Hsview - This sounds like viewer that comes with unixed based Hspice.
I hope not, because that one is just awful. Come to think of it that
was Hsplot and Gsplot as I remember (there were two programs, one
third party). Neither came close to the viewer that came with Avanti.
There was a program called Hsview that came with the DOS based Hspice
I used for a while. It looked nice, but couldn't do all the post
processing I would like to be able to do. One big problem is that
Hspice didn't supply the font it needed when they sent it to me. All
of the text on the graphs somehow became Greek symbols!
If anyone has any ideas on this, please share them!
- Larry Gipson San Diego, CA
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From: Mike Seningen <mikes@evsx.com>
About all I can speak for is that Smartspice is a pretty good simulator.
I like it much better than Hspice which I used for 6+ years.
I believe they do have a Linux version.
The graphical viewer is decent and there are a lot of post processing
capability -- though I have only used a little bit of it.
- Michael Seningen
EVSX, Inc. Austin, Texas
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From: "John Cain" <jjcain@goodnet.com>
I am also an independant analog/mixed mode IC designer and have the same
problem with IC tool costs. One of the best kept secrets in the IC industry
is the affordable Tanner Ledit Pro suite of tools for IC design. The Tanner
tool set covers the IC design needs from spice simulation to Layout & LVS
verification. Tanner T-Spice Pro is a high performance spice which handles
all the IC model cases including level 49. Simulation results are
equivalent to HSpice. T-Spice Pro includes Sedit schematic capture and is
nicely integrated with T-Spice Pro. Sedit is designed for IC design and is
completely integrated with the remaining Pro tools (layout, extract & LVS).
T-Spice is around $2.5-5k.
A second recommendation is Penzar TopSpice a high speed mixed mode
simulator. TopSpice uses a mixed mode spice simulation approach mixing a
spice 2G simulator with a digital simualtor resulting in a dramatic speed
up over traditional simulators with digital functions. TopSpice has an
integrated schematic editor which allows one click schematic to spice
simulation. TopSpice recently added Bsim3.3 models which allow level 8 and
level 49 simulations for IC designs. TopSpice also has a Spice3 simulator
(without digital simulator) that also works well with IC designs. TopSpice
is around $500.
I use both spices for full chip or subsystem simulations on mixed system
ICs and get excellent results.
TopSpice is a great all around simulator - especially when you are in a
hurry. T-Spice is more of a pure IC designer Spice with good integration
with Tanners Standard cells and verification tools.
I recommend both highly.
- John Cain
Power Processing, Inc. Phoenix, AZ
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From: gipson@cts.com ( Larry Gipson )
Thanks John!
I am laying out a chip right now with Tanner. I like it, but IC
Editor has a much better screen presentation and vastly better screen
redraw times. These are the main reasons people give for choosing one
over the other. If you remember, Calma had a solid line around
polygons and a fill within the line. There is no solid line around
the Tanner polygons, so things are much harder to see on screen (IC
Editor has the solid line). I guess it's all what you get used to. I
have never used the Tanner schematic capture or Tspice. The complete
package is around $16k.
TopSpice looks like a great contact.
- Larry Gipson San Diego, CA
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