View source for Schematic menu

==Schematic Editor Menus==

===Schematic Editor File Menu===
 
The menus in the Circuit Editor are divided into three categories and are dependent on which type of circuit you're working on, Mixed Mode, Digital, or Schematic only. The mode specific menus will be explained in their own sections. The following menu items are common to all modes:

File Menu

Edit Menu

View Menu

Right Click on Device

Window Menu

Help Menu

Workspace/Parts Chooser

New…

Opens the following dialog box that will allow you to specify what kind of document you want to create as well as its attributes.

v5pics/menu_schematic_new.png

The File tab allows you to create individual files. The new file can be inserted into an existing project by checking the "Add to existing project" box and selecting the project from the drop down box. Each new file must have a name.

The Project tab will create a new blank project with a new blank schematic.

New ->

     Schematic Circuit - Creates a new, blank schematic in a new project.

     Graph - Creates a new, blank graph and inserts it into the active project.

     Table - Creates a new, blank table and inserts it into the active project.

     Text Window - Creates a new, blank netlist document and inserts it into the active project.

Open Project

Opens a project file that might include a circuit, graphs, netlist and other associated files. The standard Windows Open File dialog box will appear when this option is selected.

Open Circuit

Opens a previously created circuit. The standard Windows Open File dialog box will appear when this option is selected.

Open->

     Graph - opens a saved graph window

     Table - opens a saved table data file

     Text File - opens a saved text file

Close

Closes the active window. Alternately you can use the close box in the upper left corner of the window.

Close Circuit Project

Closes the current project and all it's windows and removes the project from the Workspace.

Save Circuit Project

Saves the current project and all it's windows and removes the project from the Workspace.

Save Schematic

Saves the active schematic but not its project.

Save Schematic As...

Saves the active schematic to a new name.

Define Project as Test...

Saves the current project as a Test for use in the Curve Tracer.

Send...

Sends a circuit via electronic mail.

Print...

Prints a picture of the circuit or timing diagram on a printer. The window which is in front will be printed. The drawing starts at the top-left corner of the circuit window, and the scaling is the same as that on the screen. The standard Windows print dialog box will appear when this option is selected.

Print to Fit 

Prints a the current circuit, graph or timing diagram on the printer. The window which is in front will be printed. The program will automatically resize the document to fit the printer page. This command is only valid for graphic documents. Text documents will be printed normally.

Print Preview 

Shows how the circuit will look once printed.

Print Setup...

Lets you specify the page size, orientation, and other specifics for the printer. This is a standard Windows option.

Get Printer Info...

Displays the current printer info and driver version.

Eagle->

     New Circuit from Eagle file - imports a *.bdf file created in Eagle into a new Workshop schematic.

     Update Circuit from Eagle file - imports a *.bdf file created in Eagle into the active Workshop document.

     Export to Eagle Schematic - Exports the current schematic to a *.scr file ready to be read into Eagle Schematics.

     Export to Eagle PCB - Exports the current scheatic to a *.scr file ready to be read into Eagle Layout.

Export to PCB

Exports the current circuit to any of the PCB programs listed. Please see the section on PCB capabilities for more information.

Netlist Operations->

     Create Netlist Document - Creates a Spice3 language netlist representing the active circuit, and opens it as a netlist document in a text window.

     Set Netlist Title... - Allows you to set the title of the circuit netlist, and the subcircuit netlist.

     Save Spice Netlist... - Saves a standard Berkeley Spice 3F format netlist, which can then be used as input to other Spice simulation programs.

     Save Subcircuit Netlist... - Saves a standard Berkeley Spice 3F format subcircuit netlist, which can then be used to create a new part. The external nodes of the subcircuit can be set by using marker devices in the circuit, and setting their properties so that they are ports of the subcircuit.

Create Bill of Materials

Saves a list of devices and packages required to build the circuit.

Create Part From Circuit

Creates a part out of the current circuit. Please see “Create Part from Circuit” under the Technical Reference for more information.

List of recently opened files

This section lists the most recently opened files. You can customize how many files are listed here by going to the Edit->Options menu.

Program Options...

This menu brings up a dialog that allows you to set whether or not graphs are saved with the project.

Select Database

Use this option to open a parts database. This is the database that will be used for new parts that you add to the circuit...

Exit

Quits B2 Spice.
  

===Schematic Editor Edit Menu===
 
Undo

Undoes any number of previous operations, such as Cut, Clear, Move, Paste, etc. Pressing the CTRL and Z buttons together will perform the same function.

Redo

Redoes anything the you used Undo on. Pressing the CTRL and Y buttons together will perform the same function.

Repeat Place Device

Places a new device in the circuit, of the same kind as the previously placed device. Pressing the Space Bar will perform the same function.

Cut

Removes the current selection from the circuit, and puts the selection into the program's private scrapbook. Pressing the CTRL and X buttons together will perform the same function.

Copy

Places a copy of the current selection into the program's private scrapbook, and also places pictures of the selection onto the clipboard. Pressing the CTRL and C buttons together will perform the same function.

Paste

Pastes the contents of the program’s private scrapbook into the current circuit. Pressing the CTRL and V buttons together will perform the same function.

Delete

Removes the selected devices and line segments from the circuit, without doing anything else to them. Pressing the DELETE key will perform the same function.

Copy Circuit Picture

Copies the circuit to the clipboard.

Select All

Selects every device, vertex, segment, and comment on the screen. Pressing the CTRL and A buttons together will perform the same function.

Select Wire

Selects the wire that the currently selected vertex or segment is a part of.

Find Part in Circuit

Finds a part in the circuit by its reference designator. CTRL-F also brings up the same dialog box.

Curve Tracer

Brings up the Curve Tracer, which allows you to see a selected part's behavior before using it. For more information see the section on the Curve Tracer.

Edit Device, Part, Model->

Edit Part Display

This item allows you to customize individual part display. You can select which text fields and in which fonts are displayed for the selected device on the schematic.

v5pics/edit_editpartdisplay.png

The checkboxes to select whether or not certain fields are shown are greyed to indicate that they use the global display settings found in the Edit->Options menu. If you wish to overide the default, just click the checkboxes until you the box is either checked or cleared, depending on what you desire.

Edit Part Properties...

This item is used for editing part properties. From this dialog, you can edit the simulation model, symbol, and Part instance name. When you are editing the simulation model, be aware that many devices may share the same simulation model, so you may, in effect, be modifying several devices at the same time. A sample screen dump of the Edit Part Properties dialog box is shown below.

v5pics/edit_editpartprop.png

Clicking on the Edit button next to the device's symbol does the same thing as choosing Edit Symbol from the Edit menu. I.e., the symbol editor view will be opened with the active symbol present.

Clicking on the Edit button next to the simulation model does the same thing as the menu choice Edit Simulation Model. 

The Use external library model will assume that the model can be found in an library that is included in the library list found in the menu item Simulation | Edit External Libraries. For example, you could specify a simulation model named ABC and check the box for Use external library model, then include external library file abc.txt that contains the subcircuit definition of ABC.

Clicking on the Connect Symbol Pins to Model Pins button does the same thing as the Edit Package Properties menu command.

Edit Device Properties...

This item is used for editing the Device properties for the active device. From here, you can edit a device's name, description, category, manufacturer, EDIF name, and family name. You can also edit the Device's package assignments and properties. The Sub-Parts section is used to modify or add a different type of part to the device and package. Click on the Connect Part Pins to Package Pins button to assign Part pins to a package pin.

v5pics/edit_editdeviceprop.png

If there are multiple parts on a device, enter it into the Part Per Pkg box. Then when you Connect Part Pins to Package Pins, multiple parts can be assigned to the same package.

Edit Simulation Model...

This item is used for editing the simulation model properties for the active device.

For analog devices, editing the simulation model will allow you to set the model’s parameters or subcircuit, depending on what type of device it is. If the device has a process model, you can edit the process model using the lower section of the dialog. When you are editing the simulation model, be aware that many devices may share the same simulation model (in the case of subcircuits and parameterized op-amp macromodels), so you may, in effect, be modifying several devices at the same time.

For Mixed Mode Digital devices, you can set the various device delays and other properties.

For pure Digital devices, this dialog will allow you to set the device’s power properties, and pin properties and delays.

A sample screen-dump of edit simulation model dialog box is shown below. This example is for a mosfet parameterized model. Subcircuit models have a large edit field for the subcircuit text.

 

Generate/sch_edit-3.jpg

Edit Process (shared) Model As Text

This menu item.brings up a window that displays the selected Part's process model (models that start with a .model line) in a text window for editing. If used on a subcircuit-based part, the command will do nothing.

Edit Device Defects

With an Analog or Mixed Mode Digital part, this will allow you to set the part to a fixed value or condition, such as a certain voltage, impedance, grounded or shorted with other pins.

With a Pure Digital part, this will allow you to set the output pins to a fixed state and strength.

Choose Section of Package...

When Devices have more than one part per package, you can select which section is placed on the circuit by using this command. This will only work when there is already a part on the circuit and you wish to use another part from the same package. When adding new parts from a multiple-part package, the parts are automatically added in order.

Select Alternate Model...

Allows you to choose a new model for the currently selected device.

Match Model Pins With Symbol Pins

This brings up a dialog box that allows you to link model pins with symbol pins. Symbols and Models exist as separate entities until their pins are linked, making them a functional part. Click on the Model Pin name and then click on the Symbol Pin that you would like to link it with. Then click the Add New ==> button to make the match.

v5pics/edit_matchmodelsymbolpins.png

Match Part Pins With Package Pins

This item is allows you to attach a package to a part by mapping out which part pins match the which package pins. Select a symbol pin and select the corresponding package pin name/number. Then clicking on the ==> button will map the symbol pin to the package pin. Special pins that don't necessarily exist in the model, such as power pins or ground pins can be mapped by clicking on the Add Special Pin button.

v5pics/edit_matchdevicepackagepins.png

Rotate or Flip Part ->

Rotate Clockwise

Rotates a selected device clockwise by 90 degrees.

Rotate Counterclockwise

Rotates a selected device counter-clockwise by 90 degrees.

Rotate 180 

Rotates a selected device by 180 degrees.

Flip Horizontal 

Flips a selected device around a vertical axis.

Flip Vertical 

Flips a selected device around a horizontal axis.

Symbol Operations->

Edit Symbol...

This item is used for editing the symbol for the active device. It opens a symbol editor view, as shown below. When you are done editing the symbol, you have the option of saving it for this circuit only, or storing it back into the database so the changes are permanent. For more information on editing symbols, see the Symbol Editor section.

v5pics/symbol_editor.png

Scale Symbol Size 

Scales the selected symbol up or down .

Toggle IEEE-Graphic Symbol

Allows you to toggle between IEEE symbols and generic graphic symbols.

Next DeMorgan Symbol

Switches to the use of DeMorgan symbols, if the part has a DeMorgan symbol associated with it.

Select Alternate Symbol…

Some devices have more than one available symbol. Use this command to switch to another symbol. If you don’t see what you need in the pre-defined list, just click on the “View All Symbols” box and select from our database of symbols.

Schematic Options...

Under the Display tab:

The Part Display section of the dialog box determines how each device is displayed. Show Part Reference Names toggles the identifying letter associated with each part type. Show Device Titles toggles the actual device name. Show Part Values toggles the display of the specified values of parts like the resistance of resistors and capacitance of capacitors. Show Part Static Text toggles the text inside each part. Show Part-Pin Names displays the names associated with each pin. Show Pad Names turns on actual package names that the part pins have been have assigned to. Show Pin Vertices toggles the option of displaying part pins as a visible connection vertex. Show elliptical graphics within parts while dragging toggles whether or not ellipses are shown when dragging. On some computers with certain graphics cards, ellipses can leave behind “ghosts” when being dragged. If this happens uncheck the box to make this stop. Show X through unmodelled part pins will display inactive pins or pins without underlying models with a red X through them. Other options in this section include options to change various text field font properties.

The Digital Wire Display section controls how wires are shown in pure Digital mode. Color Wires by value toggles the option to display wires by color according to their values. You can set the low, high, unknown and conflict wire colors with the next 4 buttons.

The Schematic Display section allows you to customized the appearance of the schematic. Show Grid turns the schematic grid on or off. Show Schematic Border toggles the top and left location borders. Show Page Boundaries shows the printed page boundaries as a dashed line. The printed page size and orientation can be changed from the File->Page Setup menu. Show Title Box toggles the Title Block for each page. Show Node Names toggles whether or not node data is displayed. This is useful for associating data from simulation results with actual nodes in the circuit. The Text Field Font buttons set the font properties for text drawn with the Text Tool. The Segment/Vertex color buttons are used to customize what colors the wires and vertex are shown in. The node names/node voltages/branch current/power fonts buttons control the various fonts for the State Display fonts.

Under the General tab:

The Miscellaneous Options section controls some general simulation related optons. Include netlist in general simulation log allows you to see the netlist that the program is sending to the spice simulator. A better way of viewing the netlist is by using Create Netlist document from the File menu. New devices have unique models determines whether or not identical parts that are added to the circuit in the future will share the same models. If checked, identical devices will have unique models and their parameters are changed separately. Otherwise, each identical part will share the same model meaning that changing the parameters of one will affect all similar parts. Set Initial Plot Colors allows you to set the default colors used for graphing new plots. Workshop will use these colors for default graphs, but once you customize your plot color in the graph, the default colors no longer apply.

The File Options section controls general File operation options. Use AutoSave toggles the AutoSave feature. You can set the AutoSave period by setting the number of minutes between saves. The Recent Files box allows you to specify how many recently accessed files are shown in the File menu.

The Branch Current Convention section sets the method you want the current to be displayed in when the State Display is on.

The Workspace Options area controls the Workspace area of Workshop. Show Only Active Project Windows will force the Workspace to only show projects that have windows open. Otherwise, the Workspace will show all the projects and open windows in the workspace.

The Editing Options area allows you to customize circuit drawing options. Snap to Grid toggles the snap feature. If turned on, devices and wires will snap to a grid regardless of whether the grid is actually visible or not. Use Perpendicular Wires Only box toggles the ability to draw wires in 90 degree increments. Gravity pixels allows you to set the distance from a vertex a wire can approach before being automatically drawn to it. Grid resolution allows you to set the spacing of the grid system.

The Digital probe and Timing Diagram section controls options for the display of digital signals. The Use (1,0)/(H,L) for logic levels selects how the probe tool (Generate/schematic_view_s_edit_me.gif) displays logic levels.

The section titled Symbols for new parts affects new parts that you place in your circuits only. There are three standards to choose from. IEEE symbols are only for the digital parts. US and European symbols are the same in most cases, but differ for resistors and many digital gates and flip-flops.

PCB language default controls the default PCB package names that are used when picking or editing PCB package information for devices. For speed reasons, default is chosen. However for the widest selection of PCB packages, Eagle should be chosen.

Under the Print tab:

The margins section allows you to set the page margins for printing your circuit. The print scaling opton allows you to scale your circuit up or down in overall size for printing.

v5pics/edit_editoptionsdisplay.png

v5pics/edit_editoptionsgeneral.png

Set Selected Text Field Font...

Allows you to change the font properties for the selected free text field, which are text fields created with the Text Tool..

Edit Title Block Fields…

You can edit the Title Block text and font with this command. You can also control how the title block will display and print.

Edit Title Block Symbol…

Brings up the Symbol Editor to edit the Title Block symbol. You can change the Title Box layout but the text fields should not be altered or else the display of the text can be disabled.

User-Defined Parameters

Mixed Mode Only

User-Defined parameters are custom parameters that you can set, which can then be used by any device for simulation. Please see the section on User-Defined Parameters

Password…

Allows an educator to set a password after setting device defects.

Set Default Plot Colors...

Brings up a color dialog that allows you to set the default plot colors the program will choose from when generating a graph for the first time.
 

Status Bar 

Determines whether the status bar is displayed on the screen. A check means that it is displayed.

Show->

     Show Node Names - Displays node numbers at the pins of devices on the circuit or at the midpoints of the wires when this option is selected.

     Show Grid - Toggles the grid point display in the circuit view. Turning it off will speed up redraws, especially speeding up scrolling operations.

     Show Schematic Border - Toggles the schematic border at the top and left on the schematic display.

     Show TitleBox - Toggles the Titlebox display on the schematic.

     Show Page Boundaries- Toggles the display of the printed page as a dashed line. Page size and orientation is set in the Page Setup menu in the File menu

Zoom ->

Zooms in or out of the schematic depending on what percentage you select. The range is from 12.5% to 800% with 100% being the default zoom. The smaller the percentage the smaller the circuit appears.

Fit Circuit in View

Zooms the circuit in or out to best fill the window.

Schematic State Display...

Brings up the Circuit Visualization dialog box.

Clear State Display

Clears any steady state displays such as wire state and voltage/current/power values. More information on State Displays can befound under State Display.
 

===Schematic Editor View Menu===
 
Status Bar 

Determines whether the status bar is displayed on the screen. A check means that it is displayed.

Show->

     Show Node Names - Displays node numbers at the pins of devices on the circuit or at the midpoints of the wires when this option is selected.

     Show Grid - Toggles the grid point display in the circuit view. Turning it off will speed up redraws, especially speeding up scrolling operations.

     Show Schematic Border - Toggles the schematic border at the top and left on the schematic display.

     Show TitleBox - Toggles the Titlebox display on the schematic.

     Show Page Boundaries- Toggles the display of the printed page as a dashed line. Page size and orientation is set in the Page Setup menu in the File menu

Zoom ->

Zooms in or out of the schematic depending on what percentage you select. The range is from 12.5% to 800% with 100% being the default zoom. The smaller the percentage the smaller the circuit appears.

Fit Circuit in View

Zooms the circuit in or out to best fill the window.

Schematic State Display...

Brings up the Circuit Visualization dialog box.

Clear State Display

Clears any steady state displays such as wire state and voltage/current/power values. More information on State Displays can befound under State Display.
 

===Schematic Editor Parts Menu===
 
The Devices menu contains a list of the most commonly used parts, and a Choose Part item to give you access to the full database.

The individual devices in the Devices menu are covered in the section titled Devices. 

Choose Part

This command will bring up the following dialog box from which you can choose a part from the thousands of parts in the database. You can specify the part by name, or browse all or part of the database by clicking the applying specific filters to the database.


===Schematic Editor Simulate Menu===

Run Test Batch

Runs all Tests that are batch enabled.

Stop and reset

Stops the currently running simulation and resets it to time 0.

Pause

Pauses the simulation in progress.

Spice Simulation Options

This menu brings up a dialog box containing three tabs: Convergence Options, Mixed Mode Options, and Miscellaneous Options, which allow you to set various options for simulation. More information can be found in the Simulation Options section.

Convergence Options...

There are a lot of options available to help with simulation convergence. This reflects the difficulty in getting some circuit simulations to converge.

For operating point convergence, some particularly useful options are itl1, rshunt, reltol, gmin, gminsteps, vntol and abstol. Itl1 is the iteration limit for the operating point and increasing it from 40 to a higher value will help with convergence. Rshunt is the resistance from every node to ground. It defaults to a very high value (1e12). Lower values may help convergence, but lower values also could alter circuit behavior. Reltol, the relative error tolerance, can be increased to help convergence, but at the price of accuracy. If it's too high, then you may get incorrect results as is the case with a simple feedback op-amp circuit with the opamp from the devices menu. Gmin is the minimum conductance. It's used internally across junctions in transistors and diodes. If it's too small, the simulator can fail to converge. If you set it to high, however, it can affect the simulation results. Set it as high as possible without it affecting the simulation results.

Gminsteps is used in the gmin stepping part of the operating point solution. It tries to solve the circuit with various values of gmin. The higher the value of gminsteps, the better the chance for convergence.

Vntol and abstol go along with reltol in determining the error tolerance. They are useful when the node voltage or branch current approach zero and the relative tolerance becomes too constraining.

Itl6 is also helpful for operating point convergence.

Normally, itl6 should be left at zero. However, if the operating point won't converge even after using the options described above and other techniques given in the section on Operating Point Success, then Itl6 can be used. Itl6 activates the source stepping algorithm and sets the maximum number of total iterations for the source stepping algorithm. It is the same as srcsteps.

For dc sweep convergence, itl2 is useful. Increase it to help the simulator converge.

For transient convergence, a number of other options are relevant. Itl4 controls the number of iterations in the transient solver at a given time point. Increase it to a larger value, e.g. 200, to help with convergence but this may not be enough.

Trtol and chgtol are not tolerance parameters. Trtol is related to truncation error in the Local Truncation Error time step control algorithm that is used with the transient simulation. It is related to the time step during the transient simulation. Chgtol is also used in the LTE algorithm. It's purpose is to prevent the transient from locking up. Both of these should not be used unless you are a spice expert.

Minbreak is the minimum break between timepoints while running a transient simulation. For very sharp transitions, minbreak should be reduced. Breakpoints are inserted by the piecewise linear sources and pulse sources and indicate changes in inputs to the circuit.

Pivtol and Pivrel are used in the numerical pivoting algorithm. Pivtol is the minimum acceptable value for a pivot and pivrel is the minimum ratio between a pivot entry and the largest entry in a column of the conductance matrix. Only expert spice users should use these.

Method switches between integration algorithms for calculating capacitor voltages and inductor currents for transient solutions. The possible values are gear for the gear method and trap for the trapezoidal method. The default is trap. Maxord goes along with the gear method and is the maximum order for the multiorder integration method. Higher values of maxord are more accurate but may slow down the simulation.

 


Option Name
 
Option Description
 

 gmin
 
 Minimum conductance
 

  reltol
 
 Relative error tolerance
 

  itl1
 
 DC iteration limit
 

  itl2
 
 DC transfer curve iteration limit
 

  itl4
 
 Upper transient iteration limit
 

  itl6
 
 number of source steps
 

  gminsteps
 
 number of Gmin steps
 

  rshunt
 
 Shunt resistance from analog nodes to ground (XSPICE)
 

  abstol
 
 Absolute error tolerance
 

  vntol
 
 Voltage error tolerance
 

  Method
 
 Integration method
 

  Maxord
 
 Maximum integration order
 

Mixed-mode Options

Some options relate to the analog to digital and digital to analog converters that B2 Spice automatically inserts between analog and digital portions of the circuit. The parameters bb_daOutlow, bb_daOutHigh, bb_adInLow, and bb_adInHigh are for low and high output voltages for d to a converters and for low and high threshold voltages at the input of a to d converters. Bb_daOutX is the indeterminate voltage at the output of the d-to-a converter.

Maxopalter is used in operating point analysis for the maximum alternations between analog and event solutions. Maxevtiter is the maximum number of iterations for event solution. Noopalter prevents the simulator from alternating between analog and event solutions. Ramptime is the transient analysis supply ramping time, but it only seems to be used with xspice models for the capacitor and inductor (rather than the regular spice capacitor and inductor.)

ConvLimit enables convergence assistance for xspice models. ConvStep controls the size of the step between iterations on xspice model inputs. ConvAbsStep controls the maximum absolute step between iterations on xspice model inputs.

 


Option Name
 
Option Description
 

bb_daOutLow
 
 Low output voltage for implicit D to A converters (XSPICE)
 

 bb_daOutX
 
 Indeterminate output voltage for implicit D to A converters (XSPICE)
 

 bb_daOutHigh
 
 High output voltage for implicit D to A converters (XSPICE)
 

 bb_adInLow
 
 Low Input voltage threshold for implicit A to D converters (XSPICE)
 

 bb_adInHigh
 
 High Input voltage threshold for implicit A to D converters (XSPICE)
 

Bb_daTLH
 
 Low-To-High delay for implicit D to A converters (Xspice)
 

 Bb_daTHL
 
 High-To-Low delay for implicit D to A converters (Xspice)
 

 Bb_adTLH
 
 Low-To-High delay for implicit A to D converters (Xspice)
 

 Bb_adTHL
 
 High-To-Low delay for implicit A to D converters (Xspice)
 

 maxopalter
 
 Maximum analog/even alternations in DCOP (XSPICE) 
 

 maxevtiter
 
 Maximum event iterations at analysis point (XSPICE)
 

 noopalter
 
 Do not do analog/even alternation in DCOP (XSPICE)
 

 ramptime
 
 Transient analysis supply ramping time (XSPICE)
 

 convlimit
 
 Enable convergence assistance on code model (XSPICE)
 

 convstep
 
 Fractional step allowed by code model inputs between iterations (XSPICE)
 

 convabsstep
 
 Absolute step allowed by code model inputs between iterations (XSPICE)
 

 autopartial
 
 Use auto-partial computation for all models (XSPICE)
 

 

Miscellaneous Options

Defl and defw are the default mosfet length and width. You can override these in specific mosfets. They default to 100 microns if left blank. Defad and defas are the default drain and source mosfet areas.

Oldlimit uses old Spice2 mosfet limiting, and badmos3 uses the old mos model. I don't know why you would want to use either of these.

Bypass allows the device calculations to bypass updating values for unchanging elements. I presume that this would speed up the simulation.

Trytocompact is used with transmission lines. Keepopinfo is not used by B2 Spice A/D.

For more information on these options, see Inside Spice by Ron Kielkowski published by McGraw Hill.

Below, all of the "option" parameters are listed. For details on what these options are used for, see the section Simulation Options under the Mixed Mode and Analog Simulations section..

 


Option Name
 
Option Description
 

 Noopiter
 
 Go directly to gmin stepping
 

  trtol
 
 Truncation error overestimation factor
 

  chgtol
 
 Charge error tolerance
 

  pivtol
 
 Minimum acceptable pivot
 

  pivrel
 
 Minimum acceptable ratio of pivot
 

  tnom
 
 Nominal temperature
 

  temp
 
 Operating temperature
 

  oldlimit
 
 use SPICE2 MOSfet limiting
 

  defl
 
 Default MOSfet length
 

  defw
 
 Default MOSfet width
 

  minbreak
 
 Minimum time between breakpoints
 

  defad
 
 Default MOSfet area of drain
 

  defas
 
 Default MOSfet area of source
 

  bypass
 
 Allow bypass of unchanging elements
 

  trytocompact
 
 Try compaction for LTRA lines
 

  badmos3
 
 use old mos3 model (discontinuous with respect to kappa)
 

 Method
 
 Integration method
 

  Maxord
 
 Maximum integration order
 

  srcsteps
 
 number of source steps
 

  keepopinfo
 
 Record operating point for each small-signal 
 

Set More Simulation Options...

This item allows you to set some simulation-related preferences that are specific to B2 Spice.

 

v5pics/simulation_setmoresimoptions.png

 

The first three buttons control how often the graph view is updated while simulation results are received by the workshop. Obviously, updating the graph more often will slow down the operation of the program.

The option to replace old simulation results prevents the workshop from getting overly cluttered from many graphs and text simulation results.

Checking the "Run simulation with interactive communications" box will allow you to view the simulation results while they are being generated, and this will also allow you to pause and stop the simulation in progress. Leaving it unchecked will run the simulations in batch mode, which cannot be stopped or paused, and will not display a graph until the simulation is complete. Batch simulations are generally faster.

Generate extra signals will generate signals for device currents in the circuit (e.g., inductor currents) and also internal device node voltages, e.g. if a diode has a resistance, then the voltage between the actual diode and its internal resistor.

Generate deep results generates signals inside of subcircuits. At a minimum, subcircuit node voltages and branch currents will be enabled. If Generate Extra Signals is enabled, then the extra signals inside of subcircuits will be generated also.

Generate all Top-level Currents will generate all possible current signals for each node.

The Spice program specification allows you to modify the spice simulation engine file path.

The simulation data directory specifies in which directory temporary data files are written to.

Load Test Vector File

This feature is used in mixed mode circuits. It allows the user to load a set of test vectors to control the inputs during the transient simulation. All times are in nanoseconds.

An example test vector follows.

Time A      B      C

0       1      0      1

20 0      1      0

 

Edit External Libraries

This feature allows the user to include other subcircuit and process models in the netlist. It goes along with the Use External Library Model checkbox in the Edit Part dialog for devices in the circuit. If the Use External Library Model checkbox is selected, then there should be an external library file containing the model for that part.

SCHEMATIC VIEW’S SIMULAT2.PNG

Check for Wiring Errors

Runs a check on the circuit to see if there are any unconnected pins or unconnected wire ends and will display all errors in a new text window.

Time Options...

Brings up the time options dialog.

v5pics/time_options.png

The Step Time field sets the time increment for the simulation. The simulation will proceed by STEP TIME when the simulation is stepped, walked, or ran.

The Walk factor is the factor at which the step time is multiplied. The Walk simulation proceeds at a pace of Walk Factor multiplied by Step Time.
 

===Schematic Editor Windows Menu===
 
The Window menu lists all active circuits and plots and tables, so that you can choose the active window.

Cascade 

Arranges the windows so that they overlap.

Tile Horizontal

Arranges the windows as non-overlapping tiles horizontally.

Tile Vertical

Arranges the windows as non-overlapping tiles vertically.

Arrange Icons 

Arranges the icons at the bottom of the window.


===Schematic Editor Help Menu===
 
About Workshop... displays program information, version number, and copyright.


===Schematic Editor Contextual Menu===
 
This menu shows up when you right click on a Device in Workshop. Most of these menu items have a counterpart somewhere in the Menus or Toolbars. The items listed below are unique to the right-click menu.

The following three menu items, available from within the Workshop when you right click on a Device, can store Devices, Simulation Models, and Symbols back to the database. Refer to the "Working with the Database" section for more information.

Store Device to Database

Stores the entire Device, including its symbol and simulation model, back to the database.

Store Simulation Model to Database

Stores just the simulation model back to the database

Store Symbol to Database

Stores just the symbol back to the database

Update Part from Database

If any changes have been made to a part, symbol, simulation model, this command will restore it to what is stored in the database.