Mike Engelhards next simulator after LTSpice...

G

Gerhard Hoffmann

Guest
<
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/ >

cheers, Gerhard
 
On Thu, 11 May 2023 01:17:41 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de>
wrote:

https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/

cheers, Gerhard

That\'s great. LT Spice digital simulation is awful.

Free is even better. He could have sold it for big bucks, but I
suspect he\'s crazy rich already.
 
On Wed, 10 May 2023 17:10:15 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Thu, 11 May 2023 01:17:41 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de
wrote:




https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/

cheers, Gerhard

That\'s great. LT Spice digital simulation is awful.

Free is even better. He could have sold it for big bucks, but I
suspect he\'s crazy rich already.

The real breakthrough would be if there will be Spice models for their
RF transistors.
 
On 2023-05-10 19:17, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/   

cheers, Gerhard

Awesome. I\'m looking forward to trying it.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com
 
On 2023-05-10 20:19, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 10 May 2023 17:10:15 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Thu, 11 May 2023 01:17:41 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de
wrote:




https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/

cheers, Gerhard

That\'s great. LT Spice digital simulation is awful.

Free is even better. He could have sold it for big bucks, but I
suspect he\'s crazy rich already.



The real breakthrough would be if there will be Spice models for their
RF transistors.

I\'d settle for built-in support for (1) diffusive transport, e.g.
forward recovery in diodes (triple credit for modelling SRDs correctly),
and (2) plot scaling that sits still when you re-run the sim.

BTW Infineon has Spice models for their SiGe parts.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com
 
On Thu, 11 May 2023 21:55:27 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-05-10 20:19, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 10 May 2023 17:10:15 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Thu, 11 May 2023 01:17:41 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de
wrote:




https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/

cheers, Gerhard

That\'s great. LT Spice digital simulation is awful.

Free is even better. He could have sold it for big bucks, but I
suspect he\'s crazy rich already.



The real breakthrough would be if there will be Spice models for their
RF transistors.


I\'d settle for built-in support for (1) diffusive transport, e.g.
forward recovery in diodes (triple credit for modelling SRDs correctly),
and (2) plot scaling that sits still when you re-run the sim.

It can\'t know in advance how high the current is gonna go on this run!

BTW Infineon has Spice models for their SiGe parts.

So does EPC for their GaN.

I think that s-params and Smith charts and load pull data are all
relics of the graph paper and slide rule days. Spice makes so much
more sense, especially as the world gets more wideband and more
nonlinear.





Cheers

Phil Hobbs
 
Am 12.05.23 um 04:58 schrieb John Larkin:
On Thu, 11 May 2023 21:55:27 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-05-10 20:19, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 10 May 2023 17:10:15 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Thu, 11 May 2023 01:17:41 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de
wrote:




https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/

cheers, Gerhard

That\'s great. LT Spice digital simulation is awful.

Free is even better. He could have sold it for big bucks, but I
suspect he\'s crazy rich already.



The real breakthrough would be if there will be Spice models for their
RF transistors.


I\'d settle for built-in support for (1) diffusive transport, e.g.
forward recovery in diodes (triple credit for modelling SRDs correctly),
and (2) plot scaling that sits still when you re-run the sim.

It can\'t know in advance how high the current is gonna go on this run!


BTW Infineon has Spice models for their SiGe parts.

So does EPC for their GaN.

I think that s-params and Smith charts and load pull data are all
relics of the graph paper and slide rule days. Spice makes so much
more sense, especially as the world gets more wideband and more
nonlinear.

No . they are not relics. Network analyzers, SmithCharts and
s-params look at a circuit from the frequency domain just as
spice, scopes and TDRs look from the time domain.

I learned Spice 2G4 on a Telefunken TR-4 computer that still
ran mostly on core memory and Ge-Transistors, the first
commercial microprogrammed machine. A 48 bit machine and its
96 bit double reals were a joy. VAX and X87 was a major step
backwards for spice. There are no longer punched cards and
output is no longer on a chain printer.

Other than that, Spice itself has not made a lot of progress,
the biggest step was the transistion from Fortran to C but
since Berkeley has left the boat - that\'s it. 30 Years?

A number of companies have sculptured their private user
interface on the spice kernel and sold the result as a new
product. p-spice, microcap, H-spice for timesharing service,
Kevin\'s Superspice. Where are they now?
They all may have made small improvements, that are headed to
the gutter. No central authority anymore that keeps things
together and forever.
NG-spice perhaps, but I cannot remember any news since years.

As nice as LTspice was, it was a disaster for further
improvements. Now with Qorvo there is at least some free
competition. Free as in free beer.

Still it cannot model carrier lifetime for PIN diodes, it
cannot do nonlinear noise analysis. Noise analysis of
a chopper amplifier? Don\'t make me laugh so hard!

Noise and frequency response is computed in Spice by linearizing
the circuit around the operating point and then doing
small signal analysis. Is that any better than using
s-parameters for 5V / 4mA right from the start?

Which is the stable operating point in a chopper amplifier,
or in an oscillator with pulse feedback in Lee-Hajimiry style
to suppress phase noise?
How does Spice compute phase noise? There\'s no harmonic balance
simulation.

Keysight ADS & Genesys and MWO have it and they have the RF
transistor design kits in their libs. And they can ask an insane
amount of money for it.

Even ham simulators like QUCs-Studio start to get it.
< http://qucsstudio.de/de/start/ >

Cheers, Gerhard
 
Am 12.05.23 um 03:55 schrieb Phil Hobbs:

I\'d settle for built-in support for (1) diffusive transport, e.g.
forward recovery in diodes (triple credit for modelling SRDs correctly),
and (2) plot scaling that sits still when you re-run the sim.

and (3) running freq response, timing and noise in one job
without editing the .tran / .noise / .ac line, where the old
parameters are used as defaults for completely unrelated things.
 
Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 12.05.23 um 03:55 schrieb Phil Hobbs:


I\'d settle for built-in support for (1) diffusive transport, e.g.
forward recovery in diodes (triple credit for modelling SRDs correctly),
and (2) plot scaling that sits still when you re-run the sim.

and (3) running freq response, timing and noise in one job
without editing the .tran / .noise / .ac line, where the old
parameters are used as defaults for completely unrelated things.

That one is a wart, for sure. It’s reasonable to work around, though—once
you get used to the syntax, you can just put .tran, .ac, and .noise in one
block, and comment out the ones you’re not using. That way you can have all
the defaults you like.

Having the simulator ignore prominent effects like carrier transport is
more of a problem.

For time-saving, it would also be nice to have better treatment of board
strays. A full method-of-moments EM sim would be unwieldy, but something as
simple as trace capacitance wouldn’t be that hard.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC /
Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
 
On Fri, 12 May 2023 09:57:13 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de>
wrote:

Am 12.05.23 um 04:58 schrieb John Larkin:
On Thu, 11 May 2023 21:55:27 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-05-10 20:19, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 10 May 2023 17:10:15 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Thu, 11 May 2023 01:17:41 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de
wrote:




https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/

cheers, Gerhard

That\'s great. LT Spice digital simulation is awful.

Free is even better. He could have sold it for big bucks, but I
suspect he\'s crazy rich already.



The real breakthrough would be if there will be Spice models for their
RF transistors.


I\'d settle for built-in support for (1) diffusive transport, e.g.
forward recovery in diodes (triple credit for modelling SRDs correctly),
and (2) plot scaling that sits still when you re-run the sim.

It can\'t know in advance how high the current is gonna go on this run!


BTW Infineon has Spice models for their SiGe parts.

So does EPC for their GaN.

I think that s-params and Smith charts and load pull data are all
relics of the graph paper and slide rule days. Spice makes so much
more sense, especially as the world gets more wideband and more
nonlinear.

No . they are not relics. Network analyzers, SmithCharts and
s-params look at a circuit from the frequency domain just as
spice, scopes and TDRs look from the time domain.

But the RF tools do one frequency at a time. The data sheets provide
s-params for a few selected frequencies where I guess the money is.

I learned Spice 2G4 on a Telefunken TR-4 computer that still
ran mostly on core memory and Ge-Transistors, the first
commercial microprogrammed machine. A 48 bit machine and its
96 bit double reals were a joy. VAX and X87 was a major step
backwards for spice. There are no longer punched cards and
output is no longer on a chain printer.

I wrote my own sims that ran on a PDP-8 and graphed on a teletype. And
that sold a lot of stuff. My first attempt was 32,000 horsepower with
10-minute time constants.

Other than that, Spice itself has not made a lot of progress,
the biggest step was the transistion from Fortran to C but
since Berkeley has left the boat - that\'s it. 30 Years?

I understand that LT Spice is not based on the UCB code. It\'s actually
an x86 compiler.

A number of companies have sculptured their private user
interface on the spice kernel and sold the result as a new
product. p-spice, microcap, H-spice for timesharing service,
Kevin\'s Superspice. Where are they now?

LT Spice killed them. It\'s great and it\'s hard to compete with free.
It\'s like LabView, give it to the kids in college and they\'ll use it
when they grow up.

Qspice will be free too. Smart.

They all may have made small improvements, that are headed to
the gutter. No central authority anymore that keeps things
together and forever.
NG-spice perhaps, but I cannot remember any news since years.

As nice as LTspice was, it was a disaster for further
improvements.

It did get continuous improvement as long as Mike ran it. I don\'t know
what ADI will do with it. They seem to be struggling to build part
models just now.


Now with Qorvo there is at least some free
competition. Free as in free beer.

Still it cannot model carrier lifetime for PIN diodes, it
cannot do nonlinear noise analysis. Noise analysis of
a chopper amplifier? Don\'t make me laugh so hard!

Noise and frequency response is computed in Spice by linearizing
the circuit around the operating point and then doing
small signal analysis. Is that any better than using
s-parameters for 5V / 4mA right from the start?

Noise is always small-signal. Frequency response can involve serious
nonlinearities that Smith Charts can\'t do.

I work time domain, DC to GHz all at once, nonlinear as hell, so I use
Spice and have to derive my own models for RF parts. RF data sheets
are ghastly.

Which is the stable operating point in a chopper amplifier,
or in an oscillator with pulse feedback in Lee-Hajimiry style
to suppress phase noise?
How does Spice compute phase noise? There\'s no harmonic balance
simulation.

I use it to estimate picosecond jitter in LC and crystal oscillators.
How do you use frequency domain tools to quantify the Johnson and
device and power supply and temperature contributions to phase noise?

Keysight ADS & Genesys and MWO have it and they have the RF
transistor design kits in their libs. And they can ask an insane
amount of money for it.

Yes.

Even ham simulators like QUCs-Studio start to get it.
http://qucsstudio.de/de/start/

Cheers, Gerhard
 
On 5/12/2023 3:03 AM, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 12.05.23 um 03:55 schrieb Phil Hobbs:


I\'d settle for built-in support for (1) diffusive transport, e.g.
forward recovery in diodes (triple credit for modelling SRDs correctly),
and (2) plot scaling that sits still when you re-run the sim.

and (3) running freq response, timing and noise in one job
without editing the .tran / .noise / .ac line, where the old
parameters are used as defaults for completely unrelated things.

I\'ll settle for a very powerful simulator that is free even with some
shortcomings. There is a reason LT SPICE is a de-facto standard.
 
On 5/10/2023 6:17 PM, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/   

cheers, Gerhard

BTW, should be *Englehardt\'s* in the subject.
 
Am 13.05.23 um 18:46 schrieb John S:
On 5/10/2023 6:17 PM, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:



https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/


cheers, Gerhard


BTW, should be *Englehardt\'s* in the subject.

No, the correct name is: Mike Engelhardt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTspice


Bernd Mayer
 
On 5/13/2023 4:00 PM, Bernd Mayer wrote:
Am 13.05.23 um 18:46 schrieb John S:
On 5/10/2023 6:17 PM, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:



https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/

cheers, Gerhard


BTW, should be *Englehardt\'s* in the subject.


No, the correct name is: Mike Engelhardt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTspice


Bernd Mayer

*In the subject is Englehards*. That is wrong! His name is mike
Englehardt. The possive is Englehardt\'s!

Show me wrong, *Berndt*.
 
Am 14.05.23 um 01:30 schrieb John S:

BTW, should be *Englehardt\'s* in the subject.

No, the correct name is: Mike Engelhardt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTspice
[...]
*In the subject is Englehards*. That is wrong! His name is mike
Englehardt. The possive is Englehardt\'s!
Subject may be wrong, but his name is Engelhardt and not what you say.

Hanno

--
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man\'s oldest exercises in
moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification
for selfishness.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
 
Am 14.05.23 um 01:30 schrieb John S:
On 5/13/2023 4:00 PM, Bernd Mayer wrote:
Am 13.05.23 um 18:46 schrieb John S:
On 5/10/2023 6:17 PM, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:



https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/re-writing-spice-for-a-digital-world/

cheers, Gerhard


BTW, should be *Englehardt\'s* in the subject.


No, the correct name is: Mike Engelhardt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTspice


Bernd Mayer


*In the subject is Englehards*. That is wrong! His name is mike
Englehardt. The possive is Englehardt\'s!

Show me wrong, *Berndt*.

hello

Justice Mike Englehard knows almost nothing about physics, electronics
and programming of a simulator for electronic circuits.

Mike Engelhardt does.

Open your eyes wide and read all those infos available on the internet.


Bernd Mayer
 
On 5/13/2023 9:50 PM, Hanno Foest wrote:
Am 14.05.23 um 01:30 schrieb John S:

BTW, should be *Englehardt\'s* in the subject.

No, the correct name is: Mike Engelhardt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTspice
[...]
*In the subject is Englehards*. That is wrong! His name is mike
Englehardt. The possive is Englehardt\'s!
Subject may be wrong, but his name is Engelhardt and not what you say.

Hanno

Oh! I understand. Your first language is not English. Sorry.
 
Am 14.05.23 um 17:23 schrieb John S:

*In the subject is Englehards*. That is wrong! His name is mike
Englehardt. The possive is Englehardt\'s!
Subject may be wrong, but his name is Engelhardt and not what you say.

Oh! I understand. Your first language is not English. Sorry.

I doubt the name of an individual is dependent of the first language of
someone. And I also doubt your reading skills.

Hanno

--
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man\'s oldest exercises in
moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification
for selfishness.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
 
On 5/14/2023 10:41 AM, Hanno Foest wrote:
Am 14.05.23 um 17:23 schrieb John S:

*In the subject is Englehards*. That is wrong! His name is mike
Englehardt. The possive is Englehardt\'s!
Subject may be wrong, but his name is Engelhardt and not what you say.

Oh! I understand. Your first language is not English. Sorry.

I doubt the name of an individual is dependent of the first language of
someone. And I also doubt your reading skills.

Hanno

In the English language as I learned it, the subject line would have been:
\"Mike Englehardt\'s next simulator after LTSpice\"

Your doubts are dashed.
 
Am 14.05.23 um 17:54 schrieb John S:

I doubt the name of an individual is dependent of the first language
of someone. And I also doubt your reading skills.

In the English language as I learned it, the subject line would have been:
\"Mike Englehardt\'s next simulator after LTSpice\"

Your knowledge of the English language notwithstanding, the name of the
guy still is EngELhardt and not EngLEhardt. Sheesh.

> Your doubts are dashed.

Yeah sure.

Hanno

--
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man\'s oldest exercises in
moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification
for selfishness.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
 

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