SpiTran - A GUI for s2ibis2

SpiTran (Spice Translation) offers a convenient way to produce IBIS buffer models from Spice buffer models. You can already produce IBIS models from Spice models using the public domain s2ibis2 program, from NCSU. SpiTran provides:

A GUI editor for preparing the control files that s2ibis2 requires.
Checking of the Spice model files, and a GUI for preparation of the top level test fixture circuit for s2ibis2 to use.

This distribution contains SpiTran version 1.0.

Requirements

To use SpiTran you must have installed:

Java 2

Solaris and Windows

other platforms

s2ibis2

FREE Tools for IBIS modeling

Spice

SPICE2 - From the University of California, Berkeley
SPICE3 - From the University of California, Berkeley
HSPICE - From Avant! (formerly MetaSoft)
PSPICE - From Cadence (formerly OrCad, formerly MicroSim)
SPECTRE - From Cadence

Using SpiTran

To start SpiTran in Microsoft Windows, double-click the spitran.bat icon. To run in any Unix OS or Linux, type "spitran.csh".

Consult the SpiTran User Guide for information on how to use SpiTran once it is running. See the SpiTran Troubleshooting Guide if you have trouble. To help you get going, some example Spice circuits have been provided, found in the examples subdirectory:

The Spice model in the iobuff directory requires the Spectre simulator. The SpiTran Introduction presentation document (HTML or PowerPoint format) was created using this example.
Four examples "ex1" through "ex4" are from the s2ibis2 kit. These are configured to run with Spectre, but can be reconfigured to run with HSPICE. The Readme.txt file has instructions for this.

You will also need to have a working knowledge of the s2ibis2 translator, to understand the usage of s2ibis parameters that SpiTran accepts. A copy of the s2ibis2 documentation is included, and is worth reading before you first use SpiTran. It is best to consult the documentation for the particular version of s2ibis2 that you are using. To verify the correctness of the IBIS models that s2ibis will produce, you should use either the ibischk3 program developed by the IBIS committee, or use the WinIBIS viewer program provided by HyperLynx.

Limitations

SpiTran is public domain software. There is no guarantee of support. Bugs, enhancements, and file changes may be sent to Mike LaBonte. Please see the list of known issues in the SpiTran Troubleshooting Guide, and in the SpiTran Usability Report (HTML or MSWord format) before reporting new issues. If you know how to modify Java code you might try fixing SpiTran yourself. Future distributions of SpiTran will occur when someone finds the time. Hopefully all reported issues will be resolved. Unresolved issues will be added to the issues list.

Modifying SpiTran

SpiTran was originally written in Java by Anish Malhotra of Cadence Design Systems. Documentation for the SpiTran Java source code is available in javadoc format. There is also a design document describing the architecture and flow. The Java source files and class files are found in the java directory. The main class for SpiTran is "s2iMain". You will need a Java 2 development kit to work with the source code; see the web links above. If you modify the source code, you should:

Read the copyright notice found at the tops of the source files.
Be sure to place data files such as toolbar icon images in the data directory.
Run "javac *.java" in the java directory to regenerate the class files.
Run "javadoc -author -private ../../java/*.java" in the doc/javadoc directory to regenerate the documentation.
Send the changes to Mike LaBonte.

Some modifications can be made in the SpiTran startup script. The startup script is spitran.bat for Microsoft Windows or spitran.csh for Unix platforms. The script is used to:

Start the SpiTran GUI, when run with no parameters (double-click the icon).
Show the SpiTran User Guide when run with the -help parameter. SpiTran does this when the Help menu is used. You can change the way help is displayed, if necessary.
Run s2ibis2 when run with the -s2ibis parameter. You can change how s2ibis2 is run, or change the IBIS file viewer that is started after the translation. SpiTran normally opens the IBIS file in a text editor, but you might use WinIBIS, for example.