Re: [ng-spice] Who is Mike Seningen?


To ng-spice@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it, Mike Seningen <mikes@victoria.eng.evsx.com>
From Mike Seningen <mikes@evsx.com>
Date Tue, 13 Jul 1999 14:37:56 -0500
Delivered-To mailing list ng-spice@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it
Mailing-List contact ng-spice-help@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it; run by ezmlm
Organization EVSX, Inc.
References <Pine.LNX.3.96.990713205521.2842A-100000@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it >
Reply-To ng-spice@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it
Sender mikes@evsx.com

Paolo Nenzi wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 13 Jul 1999, Mike Seningen wrote:
> 
> > That will be very useful... I know a little spanish :-),
> > I believe Italians close :-)
> 
> > Third: To make sure that everything is clean.  Please
> > let me know when I have said something or aluded to something
> > which could expose your code to information that could be
> > detrimental.
> I am sorry, i do not understand, what do you mean ?
> 

You have the gist -- I want to make sure that my exposure
to the tools and their terminology does not cause problems.
But I think from you follow-up things will be fine.

> > That having been said:
> >
> > A couple of areas that I am most familiar with are:
> >
> > Measurement:
> > All the commercial tools have various means for measuring
> > data.  I've seen some do it post-processing, but most
> > do it internal to the run, some even use this information
> > for future iterations.
> Are you talking about a program like the Silvaco's UTMOST ?
My understanding of UTMOST is they use it to characterize
VLSI processes, like a arbitrary 0.15u process as an example.

What I was referring to was the ability to say something like

measure delay in transient mode from node a at a pt 1 to 
node b at pt 2, etc etc.

These measures would be part of your deck and you could
use it for informative reasons or use it as program control
"delay" could be some variable in a parameter.  Much like
.Modif you mentioned below.

> 
> >
> > The second is the output.  My understanding is that there
> > is only a textual output which allows you to graph in
> > ASCII, or Tabular formats...  All comercial tools use
> > some sort of binary output.  Hspice is the defacto std. (the .tr0
> > format)  Smartspice has emulated this as a .raw file.
> > I do not know if there is a actual standard used.
> I think that most commercial tools uses binary output to compact the files
> size and to discourage from take the results and import them in another
> program.
> >

Exactly....

> > A third area is in the use of parameters.  It is my understanding that a
> > berkely spice deck requires hard coded
> > numbers.  I assume the commercial releases use a pre-processor
> > to take in parameterized netlists and internally convert to
> > a hard coded deck.
> Yes, spice require hard coded parameters and that's bad. There is a perl
> script thet partially overcome the problem, but an extension to the parser
> is needed.

yes, most commercial tools consider Hspice compatability to 
be the "standard" for parsing purposes.

> >
> > A fourth exploits the ability to internally measure and
> > the use of parameters.  Different commercial versions
> > name it differently, and they appear to handle slightly
> > differently but in general its called "Optimization".
> > It uses various Numerical Iterative Analysis methods
> > to solve for some result by being able to vary certain
> > given parameters.  This could be classified as a frill,
> > but it is a very powerful frill.
> 
> Yeah, I would like to see a .MODIF on Berkeley's Spice.

Bingo -- but I didn't want to use that term :-)
Does Berkley have .alter? sweeps?

> 
> > A fifth feature we use a lot (but I do not know if
> > it is in the Berkely spice) is the Voltage/Current
> > controlled sources.
> Spice3f4/5 is able to simulate all the four types of controlled sources,
> plus an analog behavioral model. The analog behavioral model is an
> arbitrary function I/V source. A sort of simple "a" device of SmartSpice.
> 
Also correct -- I have used all of he above.


> > The last feature I know about is usually various
> > proprietary spice model tweaks that are built into
> > the programs.  Obviously this would not be something
> > you need to support as long as you support Bsim3v3.
> Yes we support bsim3v3 and in plan is: BSIM3SOI.

Great :-)

> 
> Now some news, by the end of the week there will be a tarball ready for
> testing. I will put the tarball on the ftp archive:
>              ftp://ieee.ing.uniroma1.it/pub/electronics
> 
> Plase note this is a really alpha version but it will support:
> 
> 1)  Bsim3v3.2.2
> 2)  Temp sweep (to be tested) by Serban Popescu.
> 

Jeez  -- sounds like you don't need me :-)

Seriously, obviously I have some catching up to do,
maybe private email of your status and where/what I can
do specifically to help.  Or I can just monitor things...

> Bye,
> Paolo
> 
> PS: How is the temp. there in Houston ?


Well from  I'm actually in Austin, about 150miles WNW of
Houston, Temp has been quite mild this year -- we're
low to mid 90's.  Houston's about the same just more
Humid (it's closer to the Gulf Coast).
-- 

---

Michael Seningen
EVSX, Inc. 
11612 RM 2244 Suite 200
Austin, Texas 78733
512/421-2134    Fax:512/263-0795
email: mikes@evsx.com
---

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