PSpice SCHEMATICS Users Take Note!

Are you a paid-up PSpice user? If so send your opinions to...

snipped-for-privacy@ema-eda.com

or go to...

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Terribly unfriendly user interface.

On the other hand PSpice Schematics is the easiest schematic front-end that I've ever used.

Which is why OrCad bought MicroSim... so they could kill off the competition.

Then Cadence bought OrCad and things just went straight downhill from there :-(

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Off screen auto connect for starters and auto connect in general.

Disconnect during the drag operation.

Loss of orthogonal in some block drag operations

Absolutely shity library editor.

Years ago Cadstar would let you shuffle part pins right on the schematic. Years ago DOS would let you move part reference and part values on fine grid while keeping everything else on coarse grid.

Skyrocketing maintenance fees.

Our local rep does not even have the software installed in their home office.

I could go on but I am staring to foam.

Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see: Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs

void _-void-_ in the obvious place

You don't use capture ;)

Post a bitch link. I'll bitch.

--
Best Regards,
Mike

Hi Jim,

What is so bad about Capture?

Regards, Joerg

That's because you haven't used SS:-)

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Behold, Jim Thompson signalled from keyed 4-1000A filament:

I agree Jim. But I learned this a long time ago from Duncan Munroe when

9.x wouldn't support the 8.x models.

LONG LIVE 3f4 SPICE!!!!!!!!!!!

--
Gregg t3h g33k
"Ratings are for transistors....tubes have guidelines"
http://geek.scorpiorising.ca

[snip]

Correct. If they carry thru with their plan, only Capture will "talk" to PSpice.

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

[snip]

And Cadence is the "de facto standard" in most IC houses, but it's a piece of crap also... slow and a terrible GUI.

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Maybe some sharp programmer could crack the interface so that our copies of Schematics can talk to PSpice updates.

I'd gladly pay for the convenience.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

I use PSpice to design ICs.

It might surprise you, but I've recently discovered that a MAJOR ANALOG IC manufacturer uses PSpice; when they inquired about creating behavioral models.

But I don't know what they are using for schematic capture.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Plus it's not left-hand friendly.

Remember the old style copy/paste/cut ctrl+ins etc. That is a right hand combination for left handed mouse users. Most apps support both, EXCEPT, you guessed it, Capture!

I'd also add that maintenance fees all seem to be spent on adding bells and whistles rather than new models. The SM PSU models are

20yrs old.

Those in the UK might be interested to know that Cadence is breaking UK law. UK is part of the EU which has laws covering EU wide purchasing, i.e. I can buy any product/service anywhere in the EU and the manufacturer can not limit this. For example a while back people were importing right-hand drive (i.e. UK) cars from Europe as the price was a lot lower (then). Now UK pspice users can ONLY buy maintenance (or pspice) from the UK VAR as that is the terms Cadence applies to the VARs. That is breaking EU law. Car manufacturers used to do this and got fined AFAIR. I'd actually like to buy maintenance from USA as it is 40% cheaper! (VAR set their own price!).

--

Malcolm

 Malcolm Reeves BSc CEng MIEE MIRSE, Full Circuit Ltd, Chippenham, UK
 (mreeves@fullcircuit.com, mreeves@fullcircuit.co.uk or mreeves@iee.org).
 Design Service for Analogue/Digital H/W & S/W Railway Signalling and Power
 electronics. More details plus freeware, Win95/98 DUN and Pspice tips, see:

 http://www.fullcircuit.com      or    http://www.fullcircuit.co.uk

 NEW - Desktop ToDo/Reminder program (free)

snip]

The **Library** (Model descriptions) should be identical. But the symbol renditions are different.

I have uploaded to my site "SUBCKT.SLB" which you can add to your symbol libraries.

These are symbols for 1-pin thru 16-pin subcircuits.

To use, just edit pin names (maintaining node order the same as in the subcircuit definition) and edit "model" to reflect the name of your subcircuit.

Then grab part "INCLUDE" and fill in the filename of the file which defines your subcircuit(s).

I developed these symbols a number of years ago when I was doing a DLL project for SGS using IBM standard cells. Rather than enter each cell as a schematic I just used my symbols to call the subcircuit netlist.

Read up on subcircuit **definition** and subcircuit **instantiation** in the reference and user guides.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Hi Boris,

Sounds painful. I don't use any auto features and I love the old DOS version. That was when things were reliable, maintenance was not an issue and so on.

As Jim said, after the aquisition it changed. Prices started to become pretty non-competitive. Especially when you consider the cost of products such as Eagle. Not quite as powerful but the thing is, for 99% of design it is enough CAD.

Still, Capture is the defacto standard in many companies on the West Coast.

Regards, Joerg

It's an old 9.8 that came with Orcad 9.8. I though that I'd express the opinion that Orcad is good for nothing but Layout and even

*that* can be dispensed with. Furthermore, I'll get Protel (that's partly a bluff. I'm not very fond of Altium at this point.) if I can't get PSpice with Schematics in the future.

Would that be clear enough? By "support", I take it you mean they're thinking of dropping Schematics and keeping Capture, right?

--
Best Regards,
Mike

Hi Jim,

Since you are one of the IC gurus, what tool are you using? Do your clients make you use Cadence? If they didn't, what would be your all time favorite these days?

Regards, Joerg

That's nice. If they go that way, it's only a matter of time before someone discovers the ActiveX interface and writes a new capture program. But if they "talk" through the interface using encryption or encoding, it won't be so trivial.

--
Best Regards,
Mike

Boris. Will MegaSquirt work on a TBI system?

--
Best Regards,
Mike

Hi Jim,

I did as well during the few times that I had to. But what are you using for the layout? Or do you contract that out (we did)?

Behavioral modeling is great. Some people even used it to model mechanical parts which comes in handy when designing things such as engine controller.

Regards, Joerg