Category: Circuit Simulation

October 29, 2008

Gemini uncloaks, announcing threaded SPICE. We talk with them to find out more.

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, SPICE, Simulation - 29 Oct 2008

After three and a half years in development, Gemini Design Technology last week unveiled their threaded circuit simulation technology, claiming performance of up to 30X faster than traditional SPICE simulators, and up to 10X faster than previous generations of threaded …

October 3, 2008

CTO Chat: Infinisim announce RASER. What’s the story?

With the announcement of RASER, Infinisim targets large mixed-signal circuits that demand high-precision and rapid turnaround. Offering the first commercial realization of dynamic mixed-mode simulation, RASER pushes the state of circuit simulation art forward a step or two. Will it …

May 1, 2008

Simulation accuracy is not a function of RELTOL setting

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, Simulation - 01 May 2008

In SPICE, RELTOL determines convergence across iterations. Why then is it being touted by Berkeley Design Automation as a means of controlling simulation accuracy? Experienced SPICE users know that RELTOL is to accuracy as grapefruit spoon is to eye surgery. …

April 28, 2008

Nascentric announces OmegaSim GX.

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, SPICE - 28 Apr 2008

Porting a multi-threaded SPICE simulator to a massively parallel GPU - interesting academic exercise or shape of things to come?

March 28, 2008

Comments on multi-core HSPICE 2008.03 for post-layout

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, SPICE - 28 Mar 2008

Synopsys recently announced a multi-core version of HSPICE (2008.03) that can handle, as well as pre-layout circuits, post-layout designs containing in excess of a million parasitic RCs. Prediction is a risky thing, but we called this a little while ago. …

February 25, 2008

Circuit Simulation - the next generation?

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, SPICE, Simulation - 25 Feb 2008

Drawing this series of circuit simulation articles to an end, we take a look at some of the vectors that are forcing change in the circuit simulation arena. Although predictions are inevitably risky and rarely correct, some areas ripe for …

February 18, 2008

Circuit Simulation - the current state of play

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, SPICE, Simulation - 18 Feb 2008

In the handful of articles published to date on this site on the subject of circuit simulation, we’ve visited - briefly, at least - each of the three generations of circuit simulation stretching from the early 1970s to today. Nassda …

February 11, 2008

Third generation circuit simulation - hierarchical simulation

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, EDA, SPICE, Simulation - 11 Feb 2008

In the second of these introductory computer simulation articles we covered Fast-SPICE, the second generation of circuit simulators. This article discusses the third generation of circuit simulation technology, the hierarchical tools, exemplified by HSIM.

Initially aimed at the memory design and …

February 5, 2008

Second generation circuit simulation - Fast-SPICE

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, EDA, SPICE, Simulation - 05 Feb 2008

In the first of these introductory articles on circuit simulation technology, we covered the initial generation of computer simulation software for transistor-level circuits, SPICE and its derivatives and descendents. This article focusses on the second generation of circuit simulators, examples …

February 4, 2008

First generation circuit simulation - SPICE and derivatives

Filed under: Circuit Simulation, EDA, SPICE, Simulation - 04 Feb 2008

Accurate circuit simulation technology is the very foundation of EDA and IC design. The modeling and simulation of circuits enables function and other operational characteristics to be obtained before committing the part to manufacture, let along before providing the part …