DSpice: Design and Simulation of Circuits using Spice
What is DSpice?
DSpice (Designing Circuits and Simulation by SPICE) is an open-source tool designed to streamline the modeling of analog components and the simulation of electronic circuits. It leverages ngspice (the open-source successor to the classic SPICE engine) as its core simulation backend. The main objectives and features of DSpice are:
- Custom Modeling: Creating new SPICE models for various electrical components.
- Symbol Design: Designing and managing custom schematic symbols for these models.
- Schematic Capture: Drawing and designing circuits using an intuitive CAD-style schematic editor.
- Circuit Simulation: Executing simulations (OP/Tran) seamlessly using ngspice.
- Waveform Visualization: Analyzing and presenting simulation results through a dedicated waveform viewer and Prob.
What’s changed in versions
- Interface of DSpice created using ElectronJS (v34.2.0) and NodeJs (v22.13.1), enabling a modern cross-platform desktop experience.
- Using ngspice (v46), which provides a robust library for analog and mixed-signal circuit simulation.
- Support for both analog models, providing flexibility for various use cases.
- Implement AC (Alternating Current) Analysis.
- Develop a comprehensive Options/Settings Dialog.
- Create a Library Management Dialog for better component organization.
- Expand the component library with additional semiconductor devices and digital models.
- Export analysis results to standard formats (e.g., CSV files).
- Integrate Verilog (Verilog-A/AMS) for mixed-signal (analog and digital) modeling.
- Embed a Python scripting engine for automation and custom extensions.
- Extend pplication compatibility to support multiple operating systems, specifically adding native builds for Linux and macOS.
- Hom page https://dspice.sf.net.
- DSpice’s documentation https://dspice.sf.net/doc.
- Download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dspice/.
To create a DSpice application from the src directory:
- Download and install Node.js from the official website: https://nodejs.org/
- To update ngspice, download ngspice and add it to the
DSpice\ngspicedirectory. - Navigate to the
srcdirectory and run the following commands:
npm install
npm start