Introduction

HSPICE Introduction

[ Introduction ] [ Files ] [ Source File ] [ Devices ] [ Commands ] [ Notes ]

SPICE is a general purpose analog circuit simulator that is used to verify circuit designs and to predict circuit behavior. This is of particular importance for integrated circuits. It was for this reason that SPICE was originally developed at the Electronics Research Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley (1975), as its name implies:

Simulation Program for Integrated Circuits Emphasis

HSPICE is a commercial and very powerful version of SPICE that has fewer bugs than the freely available Berkeley SPICE. HSPICE is a relatively comprehensive program that can be used to simulate very large circuits comprising many different types of components. HSPICE is able to handle hierarchical circuit structures (i.e., you can define subcircuits) and supports both local and global variables/parameters.

Circuit analyses supported by HSPICE:

Non-linear DC analysis: calculates the DC transfer curves from any input to any output.
Non-linear transient analysis: calculates the voltages and currents as a function of time when a signal is applied.
Linear AC Analysis: calculates the frequency response from the input to all specified node voltages and currents. Bode plots can be generated using a graphical post processor, such as AWAVES.
Noise analysis
Sensitivity analysis
Distortion analysis
Fourier analysis: calculates and plots the frequency spectrum.
Monte Carlo Analysis

Components supported by HSPICE:

Independent and dependent voltage and current sources
Resistors
Capacitors
Inductors
Mutual Inductors
Transmission Lines
Operational Amplifiers
Switches
Diodes
Bipolar Transistors
MOSFET Transistors
MESFET Transistors
JFET Transistors
etc.

The material in this website is an expanded version of material presented by Dr. J. Steensgaard. This website is maintained by Shouri Chatterjee. This page was last updated on 02/11/2003