Looking around and found TINA, circuit simulator..
Would like the thoughts of the complete package and how reliable is the PCB editing, GERBER to fab house is?
Of course, I would like the overall opinion on the complete package.
Jamie
I've used both the TI (Tina/TI, or some such) version of TINA and the licensed version. I've only used the simulator, though. I found it to be a toy but a useful one. There are many annoying features in TINA (putting things where I don't want them, and the difficulty of adding parts to the library - not possible in TINA/TI) but for what it is, it isn't bad. I found schematics to be very easy to construct.
Bottom line: the free version is worth the money. The licensed version, not so much. It's clearly designed for the education market.
I admit to a 'biased' mindset, having first used PSpice circa 1966 by entering using netlist on those IBM punchcards to create a deck. Then moved on to MultiSim's PSpice 'student version' which I even sprung for expensive manual [incredibly useful and I recommend trying to get one now] then on to LTspice and somewhat simultanesouly free TINA. Of the two LTspice was closest to what I expected and has a lot of controls in what you set out to accomplish. Whereas TINA seems to go off and do things in the background and 'magically come back with the results, which are extremely difficult to control and set up. TI started supplying some great models that only ran on TINA and NEVER had a spice version to run on LTspice. What finally made me completely abandon TINA were a few instances of unexplained WRONG answers coming from the simulation. Kicking back up through knowledgeable Field Engineers and on back to TI were NOT resolved. In other words, they had a tool that was 'out of control' even for them. So, having been burnt so many times with cookbook formulas that were wrong, and calculators that go off and make assumption while not telling you what those assumptions are that because of those assumptions then give you a wildly erroneous answer but promise 1% accuracy; I finally gave up on TINA and abandoned it. I think I have even uninstalled it now, but still kept a copy.
You might consider using LT Spice for sims and some other package for PCB layout. I don't think there's a lot of value in having the same schematic entry software for simulation and PCB layout. The simulation schematic and the PCB schematic are usually fairly different.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation
To add insult to injury, TI is going the LT route, issuing models that are encrypted and will only run on TINA.
I do not understand this mind-set.
If I were a system designer (make that a _PCB_ system designer, IC design _is_ system design), I'd not buy any part which wouldn't simulate on _my_ simulator.
So watch my site for models that will run anywhere >:-} ...Jim Thompson
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I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
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Don't be stupid! You have a company like DesignSoft developing a SPICE GUI for a SPICE core, it accepts any valid SPICE component model and they're al most certainly licensing from a third party any layout and layout simulatio n included in the package. LTSpice is the quirckiest p.o.s. around, converg ing to ridiculous asinine DC points, bug ridden functions that just plain d on't work, and documentation (I use that word very loosely) written by a dr unkard on valium- totally incomprehensible.
LT Spice is plenty good for most problems, it's free, and its netlist/schematic format is as near universal as anything is. Most everybody here uses it.
I don't know if the TINA simulation or pcb layout is any good, but there's no reason to tie simulation to layout if it compromises either.
I do this for a living, every day, and you don't. After a bit of LT-Spicing, I'm about to draw the schematic for a 4-channel DAC-programmed fiberoptic pulse width stretcher, 10 ps resolution. The layout has to be done by Monday.
I suppose I should get on with it. After some lunch.
(And I'd argue that EWB is "the quirckiest p.o.s. around")
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
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UI for a SPICE core, it accepts any valid SPICE component model and they're almost certainly licensing from a third party any layout and layout simula tion included in the package. LTSpice is the quirckiest p.o.s. around, conv erging to ridiculous asinine DC points, bug ridden functions that just plai n don't work, and documentation (I use that word very loosely) written by a drunkard on valium- totally incomprehensible.
And did you use that compensated source follower you favor so much as an LD O or some other mundane thing? I've never once seen a worst case SPICE sim discussion out of you, so when you say "a bit of LT-Spicing," you really me an a bit. BTW, you do know SPICE is an acronym?
You don't like it? Do I have to give all the money back? It turned out to be rather a lot of money.
Why don't you show us how you'd do a 2-amp LDO with 0.2 volts drop.
Spice is UC Berzekley's thing. Sure I know what it means. "Integrated Circuit Emphasis" indeed!
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
?.. PSpice came out in the 80s
er.. Mcrosims PSpice...
Totally insane for TI do do this. They are not in the business of Spice. They are in the business of selling parts.
Well, of course, I use my own SuperSpice
Another note about LTSpice, and in fact that very expensive Micro-Cap, is that they claim that Windows is at fault because they both cannot be installed reliably in the Program Files directory. The correct reason is clearly lack of competence on the part of the writers :-)
Windows doesn't let programs write to the program files directory for security reasons, and with a potentially unsupported feature, redirects writes them to somewhere else.
The resolution, as used by pretty much any mainstream software developer, is to never to have the program write to program files! Dah... Your supposed to use the Program Data directory for files that the program changes. e.g libraries and examples. The software needs to do system calls as to where the program files and program data location are for the system (Win7 Vista, XP), and install and access that data accordingly.
This was fixed in SuperSpice probably 8+ years ago.
Kevin Aylward B.Sc.
Lucky for you the profession is chock full of incapable types...
You know what they say about glass houses?
Jamie
What don't you like about this?
Works fine. The mosfets are operating in their ohmic regions, so it wouldn't matter if they were running as inverters instead of followers.
I guess I could have added resistors in series with C247 and C250, and snapped up the step response a bit, but it's plenty good enough now.
Note that TP47..50 are PCB current shunts, to measure FPGA load currents. That's clever, but needs calibration, so I'm using low-ohm resistors on the next board rev.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
My irony meter just pegged. And the needle seems to be bent ...
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Sturgeon's Revelation is that 90% of everything is rubbish.
There's certainly a lot of barely adequate (aka insanely good) electronics being sold, usually by people with an inflated idea of their own competence .
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door isn't exactly the usual way of doing business. Being economical with the truth ab out the relative merits of your mousetrap does seem to be more popular - fo r one thing you don't have spend as much time finding out about competitive mousetraps.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
That's not what's bent, Slowman.
You're bent, there's no dispute there.
Jamie
Relax Jamie. I'm straight - and I prefer intelligent women. I do try to avoid stupid men.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Krw's perceptions are not only rigid, but also distorted. He can't learn anything new, and what he thinks he knows is silly and twisted.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
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