correct spice modelling of zener noise

Mar 17, 2010 1 Replies

I'm looking for a subcircuit for Spice which models noise produced by a diode in its breakdown region correctly.



regards, Hugo


" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote in news:7e83e2a8- snipped-for-privacy@g10g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:

Good luck. Many "Zeners" are actually avalanche breakdown devices, and the noise characteristics are quite different from true Zeners. As a result, you would have to know the internal workings of the diode before you could begin to come up with a good model. True Zeners will have a fairly Gaussian noise distribution. The histogram of the noise of avalanche diodes tends to be asymmetrical. It's been several decades since I messed with this stuff, but my recollection is that true Zeners are onlu used up to ~ 3 or 4 volts. Anything higher than that will usually be an avalanche device. Technology may have changed all of that in the meantime.

Doug White

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