What is the best electronic circuit simulation software?

what is the best electronic circuit simulation software

Re: simulation software

For the circuit simulation, SPICE is the best up to present, I think. A timing simulator is a kind of circuit simulators, which is ligher than a normal circuit simulator and is developed especially for timing analysis of a more complex circuits than those handled by a normal circuit simulator. A timing simulator usually adopt a simpler active component model than a normal circuit simulator.

Re: simulation software

if you want to simulate analog circuits i recommend you the Multisim but if digital i recommend you the king of digital design and simulation: Proteus

What do you want??

simulation software

MultiSim will be a good choice

simulation software

It depends on the application:

for basic electronic design: PSPICE
for analog IC design: Spectre or Eldo
for RFIC: ADS and SpectreRF (RFDE)
for microwave design: ADS or Nexxim or maybe Aplac and usually you need a field simulator, as well
for digital circuits (FPGA, ASIC): Modelsim

Orcad is best for all kinds of stimulations and have a board concept with all features like pspice, pcb editor, allegro etc..

Proteus is great with MSP430 and PIC microcontrollers, besides having several tools to debug.

I'v followed circuit simulators for 15 years,,, Multisim, Proteus, Orcad, Tina, Pspice AD, etc.. Multisim was one of the first simulators running spice simulation and advertising in electronic magazine's like "Popular Electronics".... It's a good Starter but is more for students and has very limited microprocessor support . Proteus is more professional engineering design software and is now my overall choice for analog and digital mixed design. There is always "speciality" type simulators for rf and microwave design etc, but Proteus gives best overall technology design help. I do find that upgrades or real advances to the simulators takes years and does not seem to be a priority to the companies leaving us with " This is the best your gona get for the next xxx years"... Ahhhhhhh

Which of above simulators can be used at very high frequencies?

Well,, theoretically they use mathematics to arrive at conclusions to simulation, sooo,, I would imagine infinite. I have never tried microwave etc but I have gone as high as 900 mhz mixer controlled by a microprocessor with the regulated power supply and I can tell you that from simulation to the bread boarding the circuit,,, most actual measured parameters are right on the mark. The nice thing about life nowadays is they all offer trials of there products. If your into high frequency try them out and give us your feedback... Once you go through the learning curve for one of the simulators, the others work much the same way. There is at least one out there I've heard of geared to HF but probably would not support other parts to your circuit ( processor control, readouts switches....). The simulators I mention above are all good round simulation and you can use a "black box" approach for certain areas of your design, then, once your happy with the results push a key and the simulator goes into PCB design mode, ... I think the key here is to Learn one simulator well THEN you can proceed to your specific field of electronic design.

dpa2007 said:

Which of above simulators can be used at very high frequencies?

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Do you mean very high frequencies as in VHF the specific frequency band from 30MHz to 300MHz? or did you want something like microwave frequencies from 1 to 170 GHz? Most of those solvers are good to a point where your components and layouts are less than 1/10th of a wavelength but then you need to consider the full wave solutions with a 3d EM solver like CST or HFSS which are both very good.

It depends on the circuit you want to simulate. Newer versions of multisim now support microcontroller circuits thereby making multisim a good software because it is also very good in analog circuit simulation.
Proteus is very good in digital circuit and microcontroller simulation and has rich and complex libary.

DonWarr said:

I'v followed circuit simulators for 15 years,,, Multisim, Proteus, Orcad, Tina, Pspice AD, etc.. Multisim was one of the first simulators running spice simulation and advertising in electronic magazine's like "Popular Electronics".... It's a good Starter but is more for students and has very limited microprocessor support . Proteus is more professional engineering design software and is now my overall choice for analog and digital mixed design. There is always "speciality" type simulators for rf and microwave design etc, but Proteus gives best overall technology design help. I do find that upgrades or real advances to the simulators takes years and does not seem to be a priority to the companies leaving us with " This is the best your gona get for the next xxx years"... Ahhhhhhh

Click to expand...

I agree with you cos that what i start with too and its very ok for me

Multisim is better...! Its not important for designer point of view....Focus on design. All software has pros and cons.

This thread has descended into one of the moronic "I think xxx software is best... " threads.

Closed.

Keith