positron@cosmic.berkeley.edu (Shigeki Misawa) (12/08/90)
Archive-name: lsi/tools/survey/1990-12-07 Original-posting-by: positron@cosmic.berkeley.edu (Shigeki Misawa) Original-subject: "Inexpensive" EE design tools Reposted-by: emv@ox.com (Edward Vielmetti) The following is a summary of the responses that I have received over the past few weeks to my query about design tools for electrical engineering. The summary is restricted to programs that not from UCB (for reasons that I will discuss later) or can be obtained from UCB via FTP. An exception to this is the available versions of SPICE. I cannot guarantee that the information is completely correct or up to date. I) Circuit Simulators SPICE2G6 - The "original" SPICE program. Written in Fortran See the paragraph about UCB Industrial Liaison Program for more information. (not available by FTP to the best of my knowledge) SPICE3D2 - A complete rewrite of SPICE in C. Includes nutmeg a graphics post processor. Appears to have most of the functionality of SPICE2G6 unlike SPICE3C1, which was missing noise analysis and distortion analysis. Unfortunately will not run on a PC like SPICE3C1. See the paragraph about UCB Industrial Liaison Program for more information. (not available by FTP to the best of my knowledge, SPICE3C1 was once available by FTP but is no longer distributed in this fashion) CAZM - "Table" based circuit simulator developed at the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina. Reported to run up to 10x faster than SPICE3C1 and have better convergence. "Uses SPICE models and circuit descriptions but with nicer command language" according to a posting on the net. X11 graphics support with program called "sigview". Written in C. Contact jeri@mcnc.org for information. Cost ~$300 (educational inst) II) PCB Tools PCB design tools - (No formal name that I now of) Includes autorouter and board viewer. Requires EGA or VGA and postscript of laserjet printer. Written in C. Contact : Randy Nevin 1731 211th PL NE Redmond, WA 98053 III) IC Layout Magic V6 - IC Layout tools Contact : mayo@decwrk.dec.com use "MAGIC FTP" all caps and include city and state where program will be used in body to receive account name and password. (Also available from UCB on tape) IV) Schematic Capture/Netlist Log - interactive schematic capture/simulation tool Available via anonymous FTP from hobiecat.cs.caltech.edu in /pub/log.tar.Z netcomp - netlist comparison tool from hobiecat.cs.caltech.edu in /pub/netgen-1.04.tar.X III) Logic and other tools TimberWolf - Standard Cell placement and global routing package. Version 5.x contact Carl Sechen at sechen@yale.edu Galaxy CAD - integrated environment for digital design andfor rapid prototyping of CAD tools and other software. for 68K based systems. anonymous FTP from eceserver0.ece.wisc.edu account "anonymous" passwwd "guest". in directory pub/galaxy. University - logic and switch level simulator, verification of Washington tools, pla and romgeneration tools. Consortia Contact unknown Tool Set OASIS - mixed-mode simulator from Microelectronics Center of North Carolina. Contact unknown. The above is a summary of the information that I received. I have more detailed information on some of the stuff but not others. For information on tools that can be obtained from the EECS department of the University of California at Berkeley see the next paragraph. If you have more information on any of the above tools or other available tools, I would like to hear from you. In particular, I would like to hear about Software distribution offices for places like MCNC or other universities. A catalog of all ECAD design tools that can be obtained from the EECS department of UCB can be obtained from : Cindy Manly-Fields Software Distribution Office EECS/ERL Industrial Liaison Program 479 Cory Hall University of California at Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 The number of programs that can be obtained from the EECS department run 50+ thus my hesitation for posting them. Furthermore, I am not completely familiar with the use of all the programs. Also, since the catalog is free and very discriptive, it seemed to me to be a duplication of effort. A quick overview of some of the tools that have shown up at some point in comp.lsi.cad or sci.electronics that are in the Berkeley catalog are SPICE2G6, Spice3c1 (now replaced by 3D2), Oct Tools, TimberWolf, Magic, Ecstasy ... The types of tools available include logic simulators, circuit simulators, VLSI tools, IC layout tools, reliability tools, DSP tools,PLA logic tools ... For a complete list see the catalog. _____________- Shigeki Misawa UCB Physics Department. Disclaimer : All the information above was obtained from responses that I received from the net or from monitoring the groups comp.lsi, comp.lsi.cad and sci.electronics. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information. --