Tools That Help Build Designs

SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) is a general-purpose circuit program that can perform analyses on various aspects of electronic circuits: the operating point of transistors, time domain and frequency domain response, effects of parameter variations, among others.

The simulation process is divided into three main parts:
(i) Drawing the circuit diagram using the MicroSim Schematics software.
(ii) Setting up the simulation parameters and running the simulation itself.
(iii) Observation/ evaluation of simulation results using MicroSim Probe.

OPEN A NEW DESIGN

From Windows open the simulator..

CREAT A CIRCUIT

A blank screen will apear and you will be able to draw a circuit. Here is a quick one that I made.

How to make the circuit that I made...

First click Draw -> Get New Part..... Do this for the Resistors and the Cap.

Next we will need the two power sources..

Click Draw -> Get New Part and click Libraries highlight the source.slb and select VDC and then VPULSE

Now wire all of the components. If you wish to have Net Names like I have, double click the wire and name it. This will be useful when simulating the circuit.

To make the Power Supply 3.3V double click it and make it DC=3.3v

The Square Wave Generator is a little bit more tricky.. double click it and make..

V1 (Minimum value): 0V
V2 (Amplitude): 3.3V
TD (Time delay): 0
TR (Rise time): 10ns
TF (Fall Time): 10ns
PW (Pulse Width): 10ms
PER (Time Period): 20ms

SETUP THE SIMULATOR

The following steps will be for the graph output.

Click Analysis -> Setup and Transient

Print Step = 20ns and Final Time = 100ms

Run the Simulator by pressing F11 or clicking Simulate

** IF YOU DONT GET A GRAPH THAT POPS UP YOU HAVE ERRORS**

A common error is that a net is floating.. simply add a ground to the circuit and you are fine.

So you sould be looking at a graph like this....

When you set the transient for a long time you will have to wait a while for the simulation to finish.

So when you are at a 100% the simulation is done and you are able to look at your data.. To do this you want to click the add trace button on the top.

You should see a screen like above.. on the left are your nets and on the right are math funtions.. All we want to do is show the output of the nets Simply highlight OUTPUT like I did above and press ok. Do this for PULSE_OUT NODE1 and 3.3V as well. ** You will not have these names if you didnt labe your wires like I did in the above picture.**

Your final output graph should look something like this. This was an example to get you started with PSpice.