How often do Hardware engineers use Simulation tools while designing PCBs
How often do Hardware engineers use Simulation tools while designing PCBs? which circuit simulator do you recommend? @Joseph Ogbonna @Aditya thakekar
11 Replies
Simulation tools are great indeed, its often used but not all the time. I usually use proteus software to run some spice simulation to test some section of my design which is great indeed. When designing highspeed boards to test signal and power integrity, hyperlinx is a good option. Though not mostly used by designers but its a great tool.
Ltspice, proteus, pspice, multisim
Few times to just cross verify
Thank you @Joseph Ogbonna . What you say @Petr Dvořák. Is the component datasheet enough to come up with values while drawing the circuit schematic or do these s/w add other benefits?
@Joseph Ogbonna Wow, did you buy all of those tools? At least Hyperlinx is a super expensive tool. You are already a Pro!
@Umesh Lokhande The basic circuit theory is good for a basic digital part (not speaking of any high-speed stuff). I simulate analogue circuits because I am poor in that area. Good datasheets (Texas Instruments style) are enough because they contain Design and Implementation section.
I didnt say i use hyperlinx, i said is quite good. I normally use proteus for my simulation For circuit. Though wanted to get it but need to get a more power system to run it
I didnt buy them 🙃
Thanks Petr sharing!
Agreed, datasheet are very much ok to build a good working circuit. It depends on the level of information in it though
Quite often in the initial design phase to estimate the current, power parameters, cross varify certial design logic etc,. and at the end before signoff to check the power integrity factors.
- LTspice is the one I always stick to for the first part. It is a light weight, freeware and can easily add new/tweak SPICE scripts to study the behaviour of components. One instance is while I was designing 22V BMS for drone, the MOSFET current path's thermal stress was validated with LTSpice simulation.
- For PI and SI, there are several tools by Ansys, Cadence etc which require license. This simulations are mostly done on the final phase of design cycle while you have the board and got to check if there are any power hotspots in the trace/planes or even if any of the nets are responding to noise(this is called z-parameter or impedance analysis and in ideal case, no plane should respond to any noise). The tool I use here is Ansys SIwave which is quite comprehensive and one example where i used this is in a 71 - 77GHz RF board having E-band radio antenna on the top layer and a bunch of switching regulator in the bottom one(12 layer board). Suspiciously, we were seeing spurs in the RF signal and going deep down with this simulation analysis showed that the power plane feeding the millimeter-wave IC generating RF signal is responding to certain frequencies are creataing high impedance spikes.
Overall, simulation tools are crucial especially for mid to highly dense dense while involving RF or high power.