Brian -
Thanks for taking the time to make these points. You seem to have an
excellent grasp of how simulation fits into the larger picture of
creating a producible design. EDA Tool integration - library
management - model validation - I never could get these ideas across
to my last employer! His attitude was, "This assembly has a high rate
of failure in production test for the last month. Can this SPICE
program show us what's wrong so I can tell manufacturing after lunch?"
As for Scotland - Since I have a Scottish name, I've been curious
about what the place was like. It's impressive that the Romans
conquered half the world, but put a wall across northern England
because they were finally up against somebody they couldn't beat.
King James' (the 6th, of Scotland, as I recall) Bible was the standard
for over 3-1/2 centuries. And Engineering must be a terribly
competitive craft when you're among a people who produced the likes of
Napier, Watt and Maxwell.
Thanks again for your comments,
Dale Thomas Chisholm
--- In LTspice@..., brian.howie@b... wrote:
In what companies is LTSpice used as part of the circuit design
process?
I know that a number of people here use it unofficially. Our
so-called "prefered" simulator is SABER for some strange reason,
although our ECAD does (thank God) support Accusim -a Spice based
simulator.
Both official simulators are part of an integrated tool-set that
allows (in theory anyway) design from a high level behavoural
model through detail discrete circuit and IC design and layout
to PC board layout with a common component library (physical
and virtual).
You will find this to be the case in most large companies i.e.
the simulator is only one part of the picture; other tools that
can take data directly from the schematic capture are very
desirable in order to avoid mistakes. There is also the
problem of configuration control of data and shared libraries
(which version are we working on ?) A large team can be working
on the one design concurrently in our ECAD environment -all
seeing the current version.
The fact that LTSpice is standalone, does make it non-ideal in
these respects. However I am tending to use it more and more
for small circuits or parts of circuits or for debugging
designs. The official simulators are not efficient for this,
they are better for really big hierarchical designs and data
management.
The huge "plus" is that I can run the accusim netlists on
LTSPICE for sanity checking and vice versa i.e I can attach
an LTSPICE netlist to an Accusim symbol and run it.
I am very impressed by LTSPICE and have been recommmending
its use in the context I describe. The only thing lacking
is a monte-carlo (Mike ?)
Good luck in your job hunting. We have places in North America,
if you don't want to come to Scotland.
Brian
--
Brian Howie | Tel: 0131 343 5590
BAE SYSTEMS | Fax: 0131 343 5050
Sensor Systems Division | Email brian.howie@b...
Silverknowes | bhowie@i...
Edinburgh EH4 4AD | Web site www.baesystems.com
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