Circuit Simulation

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Circuit simulation is a technique for checking and verifying the design of electrical and electronic circuits and systems prior to manufacturing and deployment. It is used across a wide spectrum of applications, ranging from integrated circuits and microelectronics to electrical power distribution networks and power electronics. Circuit simulation is a mature and established art and also remains an important area of research. This text covers the theoretical background for circuit simulation, as well as the numerical techniques that are at the core of modern circuit simulators. Circuit simulation combines a) mathematical modeling of the circuit elements, or devices, b) formulation of the circuit/network equations, and c) techniques for solution of these equations. We will focus mainly on the formulation and solution of the network equations and will not cover device modeling in any detail.

Compared to simulators that operate on a design description at higher levels of abstraction, such as logic or functional simulators, circuit simulators use a detailed (so-called circuit level or transistor level) description of the circuit and perform a relatively accurate simulation. Typically, such a simulation uses physical models of the circuit elements, solves the resulting differential and algebraic equations, and generates time-waveforms of node voltages and element ...