Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Role of SPICE Simulator in Analog/Digital VLSI Design

As we are entering in the great era of electronics world so we need tools and techniques which can makes our work easier. One of them is SPICE.

SPICE is the acronym of “simulation program with integration circuit emphasis”. As the name suggests it is general purpose software for the simulation of different circuits. SPICE used for EDA (electronic design automation).

Now let us discuss about process of using SPICE for simulation. In this tool, circuit file is the input. For creating circuit file, programming or directly schematic can be used. Programming may be simple code in “c language” or in any other computer language while schematic is drawn according to desire circuitry in SPICE schematic window. There is library present in SPICE tool which contains the basic components used to draw a circuit. Once the circuit file is created simulation command is given to simulate it and we get response according to schematic.

SPICE
SPICE is used when we need different kinds of analysis like AC analysis, DC analysis, DC transfer curve, noise analysis, transfer function analysis, transient analysis.
Instead of using breadboard for testing a circuit we use SPICE software it makes our work efficient.

DIGITAL VERSUS ANALOG CIRCUIT

Most of the electronic industry is comprises of analog and digital circuits both plays a crucial role in electronics and electrical applications.

Now there are some points, which defines there importance comparative to each other, are given as follows :

Continuity : Analog circuit functioned on continuous signal while in digital circuits operates on discrete signals.

Flexibility : Generally analog circuits lacks in terms of flexibility while digital circuits are highly flexible as   they can modified easily by just changing the logic function.

Complexity :  Analog circuits are more complex to design then digital circuits.

Converters :  In analog circuit there is no need of converters inputs and outputs both are given in analog   form while in digital circuits analog to digital converter is required for input and digital to analog converter is needed for output.

 Noise : Analog circuits are more vulnerable to noise while digital circuits have more noise tolerance.



(Intern at Silicon Mentor)

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