Analog/RF Verification Tools Need No Block Tuning

A pair of advanced circuit verification tools, Analog FastSPICE and RF FastSPICE, offer full-SPICE accuracy at 5X to 10X the performance of other tools, while requiring no block tuning, according to Berkeley Design Automation. They also provide up to an order of magnitude more verification bandwidth for gigahertz circuits in nanometer-scale silicon technology than traditional SPICE and RF and digital FastSPICE simulators.

Analog FastSPICE uses the industry’s first multi-rate transient engine to deliver extremely robust dc convergence. Target applications are any simulations that require full-SPICE accuracy and would take many hours or even weeks to run in traditional SPICE simulators. The software has been proven in a range of production circuits, including full IEEE 802.11a/b/g transceivers, sigma-delta analog-to-digital converters, DTV tuner automatic gain controls with bandgap and bias, high-speed I/O, and post-layout multi-gigahertz phase-locked loops. RF FastSPICE adds unified time/frequency, harmonic balance, and stochastic non-linear engines to the Analog FastSPICE functionality. Target applications include any complex RF blocks—such as highly non-linear, multi-frequency blocks—that do not converge in traditional RF simulators or have more than one-hour runtime.

Both tools include full Cadence Virtuoso ADE integration and full Synopsys HSPICE and Cadence Spectre netlist compatibility. They support standard models—such as BSIM3, BSIM4, and s-parameters.