MacSpice, WinSpice and ASCII schematics
Well I mentioned that my buddy Don Sauer was going to send up some info on ASCII schematic programs and cheap/free Spice simulators. Rather then rephrase his words I will just paste them in:
Hi Paul..
As I said, I have two software programs that you might find interesting. The first program makes it very easy to come up with ASCII schematics. The program is called "Email Effects" and it can be downloaded at …
They sell both a Mac and PC version for $15. I now just cut and paste up a schematic in about the same time it use to take me to do it on cadence. I like to put schematics, net-list, transistor data and curves, and models all one small text file. I have included below an example net-list I use to calibrate models. This net-list works off of MacSpice 3f5, which is available free at the following..
http://newton.ex.ac.uk/teaching/CDHW/MacSpice/
I can do pretty much everything with this simulator. I have working files for things such as mixers, amplitude and phase modulation, phase lock loops, distortion, transient analysis of noise, model parameter measurement and calibration, LC transmission line reflections, and band-gap measurements including my sauer_diode. If you have access to Mac, I can set you up right away. There is a PC version which works with almost the same files. I sometimes have to slightly modify the format to get the same results off of my PC. A PC version is available at as shareware at…
I think MacSpice sets all it directories up automatically. It should then be possible for me to send you a complete simulation environment as a single text file. You just open this text file in MacSpice, and it does all the rest. It may be possible for anyone to download a very complicated simulation as a text file off of your web site, and be completely up and running with a single mouse click. Now your readers don’t just read about fun electronics, you can give them something to play with.
..Don Sauer
I hope to work up a little area in the website about cheap IC design tools. Don is using 15-dollar tools to do what Cadence charges 100 grand for. The populist in me likes that. Now, Don is not so silly to say that Cadence is not a kick-but design tool. As a matter of fact maybe I can get him to share some scripts he did for Cadence that will simulate and check the silicon against a datasheet and then you can figure out where your model went wrong. I have a few more buddies that have used 1000-dollar layout tools to design successful analog ICs. We’ll get them to chime in one day soon. Tape-out on a budget, that’s the name of this series.
