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== Understanding RF Circuit Analysis as an Analog Simulation ==

You can use [[RF.Spice A/D]] to simulate or design distributed analog and mixed-mode circuits at high frequencies. RF circuit analysis, by nature, is an AC analysis that you typically run at high frequencies ranging from tens of Megahertz to tens of Gigahertz. At such high frequencies, the dimensions of your circuit may become comparable in order of magnitude to the wavelength, when wave retardation effects start to appear. In other words, your circuit starts to act like a distributed structure rather than a lumped circuit where signals propagate instantaneously. In the analysis of a low frequency circuit, two nodes that are connected to each other through a wire are assumed to have equal potentials or identical voltages. In RF circuits, however, parts and devices are connected to one another using transmission line segments, which introduce additional phase shifts depending on their electrical lengths and may also alter the voltages and currents at different points of the circuit due to impedance mismatch.

[[RF.Spice A/D]] uses the same Berkeley SPICE and XSPICE simulation engines of its forerunner B2.Spice A/D. In other words, the high frequency AC analysis is carried out by the same analog and mixed-mode SPICE simulation engines based on nodal admittance analysis, which have been enhanced with additional RF simulation capabilities. As a result, you can mix the RF devices in your circuits with all the other analog and mixed-mode devices. You can also mix transmission-line-type RF devices with digital parts and perform mixed-mode time domain simulations.