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working with Spice software
Posted 2 feb 2012, 12:51 GMT-5 Low-Frequency Electromagnetics, RF & Microwave Engineering, Heat Transfer & Phase Change, Installation & License Management, Materials, Mesh, Studies & Solvers Version 4.2a 1 Reply
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Hi
I am new to Comsol and would like to model and design some 3D components like transformers and inductors in AC/DC module. However, I would eventually want to simulate the full circuit through importing the circuit from the SPICE program for full sensitivity and performance analysis. I have few questions here and would appreciate if you could answer them.
(1) I am going to use two different versions of spice program here, initially using the free LTSpice from Linear Technology and later PSPICE from Cadence. I would like to check if COMSOL could support both version of Spice?
(2) Does Comsol work by importing the circuit information from the SPICE software through the *.cir file? Do both versions of the Spice programs able to generate the *.cir format? Does Comsol working with other format or will it prefomance the same function?
(3) Is Comsol only import the circuit network layout and components information from the SPICE and have an internal solver to solve the complete circuit entirely or it will also need to send command to use the SPICE solver for final solutions?
(4) How well Comsol support the Spice program, particularly the Cadence PSpice? Does it support all components and parameters such as coupling coefficient, k from the SPICE? Any limitation when working with these two programs.
Thanks in advance,
Chek Yang
I am new to Comsol and would like to model and design some 3D components like transformers and inductors in AC/DC module. However, I would eventually want to simulate the full circuit through importing the circuit from the SPICE program for full sensitivity and performance analysis. I have few questions here and would appreciate if you could answer them.
(1) I am going to use two different versions of spice program here, initially using the free LTSpice from Linear Technology and later PSPICE from Cadence. I would like to check if COMSOL could support both version of Spice?
(2) Does Comsol work by importing the circuit information from the SPICE software through the *.cir file? Do both versions of the Spice programs able to generate the *.cir format? Does Comsol working with other format or will it prefomance the same function?
(3) Is Comsol only import the circuit network layout and components information from the SPICE and have an internal solver to solve the complete circuit entirely or it will also need to send command to use the SPICE solver for final solutions?
(4) How well Comsol support the Spice program, particularly the Cadence PSpice? Does it support all components and parameters such as coupling coefficient, k from the SPICE? Any limitation when working with these two programs.
Thanks in advance,
Chek Yang
1 Reply Last Post 2 feb 2012, 14:51 GMT-5
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Posted:
1 decade ago
I am new to Comsol and would like to model and design some 3D components like transformers and inductors in AC/DC module. However, I would eventually want to simulate the full circuit through importing the circuit from the SPICE program for full sensitivity and performance analysis. I have few questions here and would appreciate if you could answer them.
(1) I am going to use two different versions of spice program here, initially using the free LTSpice from Linear Technology and later PSPICE from Cadence. I would like to check if COMSOL could support both version of Spice?
From what I have seen, Comsol supports only .cir files.
(2) Does Comsol work by importing the circuit information from the SPICE software through the *.cir file? Do both versions of the Spice programs able to generate the *.cir format? Does Comsol working with other format or will it prefomance the same function?
Yes, once you have a netlist of your circuit you can upload that file with a right mouse click (assuming you are using ver4.0a and later). I know LTSpice generates .cir files w/o a problem. I don't remember if cadence does or not but all you really have to do is open the netlist viewer, copy the netlist, open up something like notepad, copy your netlist into notepad, save the file, and then change the extension from .txt to .cir.
(3) Is Comsol only import the circuit network layout and components information from the SPICE and have an internal solver to solve the complete circuit entirely or it will also need to send command to use the SPICE solver for final solutions?
comsol can solve the circuit internally but there are limitations. It is not as functional as LTSpice is so while it works, it is kind of clunky.
(4) How well Comsol support the Spice program, particularly the Cadence PSpice? Does it support all components and parameters such as coupling coefficient, k from the SPICE? Any limitation when working with these two programs.
Comsol does not support k statements as of ver 4.2a. If you have items that need to be coupled you will either have to wait for them to implement such a thing or use controlled sources. That is a pain unless you are pretty good at this.
Thanks in advance,
Chek Yang
dennis