SPECTRE Interfaces

SPECTRE is a SPICE-like circuit simulator developed by Cadence Design Systems that simulates analog and digital circuits at the differential equation level using direct methods.

SPECTRE uses the same basic algorithms used in UCB SPICE but the implementation of these algorithms uses the most up-to-date methods currently available.

IC-CAP offers 3 different interfaces for use with the SPECTRE simulator:

SPECTRE Interface

The SPECTRE interface is compatible with SPECTRE version 4.4.3 simulators and later. Unlike the SPECTRE443 and SPECTRE442 interfaces which invoke the SPICE netlist parser, this interface uses native SPECTRE netlist syntax to parse data from the circuit page. This alleviates the need to translate SPECTRE netlists to SPICE syntax prior to entering the netlists on the circuit page. See the following section, Valid SPECTRE Netlist Syntax for IC-CAP."

SPECTRE443 Interface

This interface is compatible with SPECTRE versions up to 5.0.0. The SPECTRE443 interface invokes a SPICE netlist parser, unlike the SPECTRE implementation which uses native SPECTRE netlist syntax to parse data from the circuit page. This interface requires that SPECTRE netlists are first converted to SPICE syntax prior to entering them on the circuit page.

SPECTRE442 Interface

This interface is compatible with SPECTRE simulator version 4.2.2 only. The SPECTRE442 interface invokes the SPICE netlist parser, unlike the SPECTRE interface which uses native SPECTRE netlist syntax to parse data from the circuit page. This interface requires that SPECTRE netlists are first converted to SPICE syntax prior to entering them on the circuit page.

Open Simulator Interface (OSI)

This interface requires the compilation of a translation module (see spectre3.c in $ICCAP_ROOT/src). This translation module allows IC-CAP to operate as though it is interfacing to SPICE 3. This interface is no longer recommended, but is documented to help migration efforts from the old interface to the new SPECTRE interface template. For details, see Using Template SPICE3 and the Open Simulator Interface spectre3.c.