Simulators in the Affirma

Analog Design Environment

Sachin Shinde
Xiaolai He

 Cadence design framework II environment

consists of many Cadence tools which are
interoperable without requiring data conversion.
DFII is an open system allowing the user to
integrate third party tools like simulators using
programmable netlister or enter their own design
data.
Simulators

Direct Simulators
Eg. Spectre

Socket Simulators
Eg. SpectreS, cdsSpice

Direct Simulation Vs Socket

Simulation
Direct Simulation
This is a preferred method because uses the new features added
to Spectre simulator and uses direct simulation.
With direct simulation, the netlist uses the syntax of the simulator
w/o any processing to evaluate expressions.
The netlist is a direct reflection of the design.

Socket Simulation
The netlist is processed by Cadence SPICE to evaluate all
expressions and resolve passed parameters.
Socket methodology is used to integrate a simulator if the current
simulator cannot handle expressions or parameters passing.
Efficient operation in various interactive mode such as simulation
stop and restart or change values and resimulate.

More About Direct Simulation

Important Benefits of Direct Simulation
Improved performance in netlisting.
Improved performance of simulation for
Spectre.
Readable netlists.
Read only design can be simulated provided
that they are extracted.
Improved support of standalone netlisting.

Other Simulators
In addition to Cadence SPICE and Spectre
circuit simulator popular analog and
microwave simulators can be used through
a set of integrated simulation interfaces.
Eg. Meta Softwares HSPICE circuit simulator,
HPs MNS microwave simulator, Compact
Softwares Harmonica microwave simulator.

We have AFFIRMA HSPICE interface

installed on our system.
We do not have a HSPICE simulator
installed yet.

Spice, PSpice and HSpice

SPICE was originally developed at the
Electronics Research Laboratory of the
University of California, Berkeley (1975)
PSpice is a PC version of SPICE
(MicroSim Corp.)
HSpice is a version (Avant!.) that runs on
UNIX workstations and larger computers.
This is particularly fast version and one
that should be normally used.

Spectre Simulator
AFFIRMA Spectre simulates analog and digital
circuits at the differential equation level.
The capabilities of Spectre circuit simulator are
similar in function and application to SPICE, but
Spectre is not descended from SPICE.
Spectre and SPICE use the same basic
algorithms eg. Newton Raphson, direct matrix
solution, but every algorithm is newly
implemented.
Manual claims Spectre algorithms are the best
currently available and is faster, accurate, more
reliable and more flexible than previous SPICE
like simulators.

Improvements of Spectre over

SPICE
Improved Capacity
Can simulate larger circuit.

Improved Accuracy
Improved component models and core simulator algorithms

Improved Speed
Improved Reliability
Improved Models
Analog HDLS
Works with Spectre HDL and Verilog- A

RF Capabilities
Analyses of Mixer, oscillators, sample hold and switched-capacitor filter

Mixed Signal Simulation

Spectre circuit simulator coupled with the Verilog-XL simulator in the AFFIRMA
environment can simulate mixed analog and digital circuit

Environment
Fully integrated into Cadence DFII for AFFIRMA and also in Cadence Analog
workbench design system

SPICE compatibility of Spectre

SPICE is a industry standard language with
many variations of SPICE syntax on market
today.
Each vendor modifies it with different capabilities
and/or slightly different syntax.
For convince of SPICE users AFFIRMA Spectre
simulator provides SPICE Reader as an
extension to its native language that accepts
most variations of SPICE input.
SPICE Reader supports SPICE2, SPICE3, and
common extensions found in other simulators
like PSPICE and HSPICE.

Cadence SPICE
Cadence SPICE simulator is an interactive
circuit simulator based on UC Berkleys
SPICE2 program.
Modified architecture for interactive
operations plus enhancement that
automatically improve convergence with
problem circuit.
Can be used within the Analog simulation
environment or as a standalone simulator.

Cadence DFII Architecture

HSPICE Simulator

Gold standard for accurate circuit simulation.

Extensive set of build in devices, models including models for small
geometry MOSFET and MESFET.
Compatible with Spice and MSING input format.
Cadence supports a library of primitives and a full interface of
HSpice.
High Performance:
HSPICE achieves upto 20x speed up for cell characterization applications
where speed, power and noise are most important.

HSPICE RF For High Frequency & RF Designs:

Using its harmonic balance engine, HSPICE RF offers high-capacity nonlinear, frequency domain simulation capabilities for RFIC and high frequency
designs.

Signal Integrity:
HSPICE simulates enhanced W elements and extracted S parameters
for accurate signal integrity analysis of PCBs.

Inverter Example
Compared performance of Spectre,
SpectreS, cdsSpice and HSPICE
simulators using the inverter example.

AMI06N Models in Spectre and

Hspice
Spectre (AMI06N)

Hspice (AMI06N)

Simulation with Spectre

Used the Spectre
MOS models for
simulation in the
standalone mode.
Total time required for
the 24ns simulation
with step size of
0.01n was 1s.

Simulation with SpectreS

Used the spectre
MOS models for
simulation in the
nominal mode.
Does not simulate
using the hspice
models.
Total time required for
the 24ns simulation
with step size of 0.01n
was 3s.

Simulation with cdsSpice

Can be simulated
using either the
Hspice or Spectre
models for simulation
in the nominal mode.
Total time required
for the 24ns
simulation with step
size of 0.01n was
21s.

Simulation with HSPICE

Using the AFFIRMA
hspice interface could
generate the netlist
fro HSPICE.
Couldn not simulate it
cause do not HSPICE
simulator is not
installed.

NCSUs Spectre and Hspice

Comparison

The process: TSMC 0.25um

The models: BSIM3v3, sizebinned
The circuit: A 25-element delay
chain using current-steering
inverters
The measurement: Rising
edge delay (50%) between
clock input and final delay
element output for different
control voltages
Worst-case percent difference
is 3.32%. Worst-case absolute
difference (Spectre - HSPICE)
is 109ps

Conclusion
Many variations of SPICE simulators are available in the
market each optimized for different function.
The choice of a type of SPICE simulator is very problem
dependent.
Spectre available in AFFIRMA is not a SPICE simulator.
Spectre is well documented.
Cadence SPICE is the SPICE simulator available in
AFFIRMA which can be used with cdsSPICE or
SpectreS interface.
In the inverter simulation we found spectre simulator to
be much faster than SpectreS and cdsSpice.

Conclusion (cont.)
Couldn't compare the speed of simulation for
Spectra and Hspice simulators.
NCSU tutorial states that they didnt find and
significant difference between HSPICE and
Spectre simulations results.
In general we would recommend the use of
Spectra over SpectreS and cdsSpice if the
development environment is Cadence.
If portability of design across different
environment is desired a Spice based simulator
like Hspice or cdsSpice is recommended.

References
Affirma Analog Circuit Design Environment
User Guide, Cadence, Product version
4.4.6, April 2001
Cadence Spice Reference Manual
AFFIRMA Spectre simulator users guide
http://www.synopsys.com
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~jan/spice/spic
e.overview.html#INTRODUCTION