Re: low budget IBIS tools

Hi,

I am perplexed why one would want to convert IBIS to Spice models.

My experience has been that digital designers (which IBIS is intended to
serve) want to move away from SPICE to tools better suited to analyzing
signal integrity, cross-talk, and EMC -- the annoying by-products of
high speed digital circuits and fast edge rate devices that are common
today.

SPICE is a valuable tool for the analog engineer, and gives accurate
results to the experienced user that understands the modeling
requirements; however, it has not been the most effective tool for doing
large scale signal integrity analysis on PCBs which is becoming more and
more necessary on today's digital designs.

In addition, IBIS models are often converted from SPICE. Why not
request the SPICE models directly?

All comments welcome,
Tom

-- 
Tom Warneke
CAD Application Engineer
Cisco Systems
250 Apollo Drive
Chelmsford, MA 01824
email: twarneke@cisco.com
Phone: 508-244-8214
  FAX: 508-244-8347
fabrizio zanella wrote:
> 
> Ted,  regarding the IBIS to SPICE conversion in the AMPredictor tool;
> is the SPICE behavioral model output a file which can also be read by tools
> like HSPICE, PSPICE?  How do you verify the accuracy of the IBIS models and
> also have you verified if any critical information has been lost in the
> conversion process?
> Does anyone else out there know of any other tools which are available for
> sale which convert IBIS files to HSPICE or PSPICE formats?
> Thanks,
>                                                                         Fabrizio Zanella
>                                                                         Sr. Design Engineer
>                                                                         Hardware Engineering
>                                                   _/ _/  email:
> zanella_fabrizio@emc.com
>        _/_/_/_/  _/     _/   _/_/_/     _/    voice: (508) 435-1000 Ext.
> 4645
>       _/        _/_/ _/_/  _/        _/          Fax: (508) 435-8949
>      _/_/_/_/  _/  _/ _/  _/      _/_/_/
>     _/        _/     _/  _/                       EMC Corporation
>    _/_/_/_/  _/     _/    _/_/_/                  171 South Street
>                                                 Hopkinton, MA 01748-9103
> -------------
> Original Text
> From: "Lin, Ted" <tlin@amp.com>, on 10/23/97 5:56 PM:
> To: smtp@Eng@EMCHOP1["'ibis-users@vhdl.org'" <ibis-users@vhdl.org>],
> smtp@Eng@EMCHOP1["'ram'" <rmcbain@dynavision.com>]
> 
> Hi Rick,
> 
> AMP Inc. offers a signal integrity tool called the AMPredictor Signal
> Integrity Analyzer. ($8,500 for a single license, $5,000 a piece if
> you purchase 3 licenses.)  It is a Spice-based pre-layout tool that
> includes a complete Spice engine, a 2-D field solver that generates
> coupled-lossy transmission line models, connector noise analyzer, and
> an IBIS-to-AMPSPICE converter.  The software can convert an IBIS data
> file to a SPICE-format analog behavior model.  It then can be used
> with the AMPSPICE engine to perform Spice-based critical net analysis.
> 
> There is more information on the website.
> www.ampincorporated.com/ampredictor
> 
> ----------
> From:  ram [SMTP:rmcbain@dynavision.com]
> Sent:  Thursday, June 12, 1997 10:20 PM
> To:  ibis-users@vhdl.org
> Subject:  low budget IBIS tools
> 
> are there such a thing?  I'm doing a 40 Mhz microprocessor design
> which
> looks like it has some potential problems with the bus layout.  I'd
> rather not spend the 5 to 50K for modelling tools if I can help it.
>  Are
> there any lower cost IBIS to spice convertors out there? And is the
> conversion accurate (i.e., do you lose information in the conversion
> from IBIS to spice), or should I be looking for native-mode tools?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Rick McBain
> Senior Engineer
> Dynamic Control Syetms Inc.