Re-writing SPICE for a digital world
Mike Englehardt, the creator of several versions of the Spice analog simulator, has developed a new version that can integrate digital elements with no performance penalties.
He went back to the original Spice code and re-wrote it, incorporating the years of experience with developing simulators such as LTSpice and spice models. That also includes the ability to run full digital models alongside the analog power devices, he tells Nick Flaherty of eeNews Europe at PCIM Europe 2023.
The digital models can be behavioural models, but can also be as detailed as the Verilog code of a microcontroller. The digital elements are not run in an interpreter but run as native object code on the Intel processor to avoid impacting on the Spice simulation, says Englehardt.
The models can also be encrypted by the developers and run on the simulator, allowing a wider ecosystem of IP to be used securely.
The simulator has been adopted by Qorvo as Qspice is being shared with very early adopters. It will be on general beta release in July. It runs on Windows PCs with GPU accelerators for high quality the real time graphics.
“There is a collection of 62 circuits that are used as a torture test and Qspice is the first one that can run all of these and in most cases is in first place,” said Jeff Strang, general manager of the power business at Qorvo.
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Qspice will be free for commercial use and unrestricted, but only available from Qorvo. Models of devices can be hosted by semiconductor companies and Qorvo is working with microcontroller designers to make models available.
“Our move into power move has three elements,” said Strang. The first was the acquisition of Active Semiconductor for its motor control and power management chips, the second was the acquisition of United SiC for silicon carbide chips.
“The third piece is the simulation as you just can’t offer parts any more, Now we have the best analog spice engine in the world that also supports massive amounts of digital so we can integrate the digital parts of the design.”
He points to a three phase traction 150kW inverter design using the Qorvo SiC cascode devices.
“Mike has modelled that complete system and you can open the model in Qspice and run detailed simulations on each of the FETs and on the whole design,” said Strang.
“A motor controller today is not just the control signals, now there’s a complex microcontroller, and Qspice can simulate that entire digital simulation as a circuit block in C++ behavioural model and we have been talking to microcontroller vendors about that,” he added.
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