IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION. VOL. 32, NO. I .

FEBRUARY 1989 35

Novel Applications of SPICE in Engineering

Education

Abstract-This paper presents several novel applications of the Recently, MicroSim has announced the availability of
SPICE circuit analysis computer program which should be of use to site licenses for the full version of PSPICE.
engineering students of various disciplines. Attention is directed to an
implementation of SPICE for the MSDOS operating system environ-
PSPICE runs in the MSDOS and VAX environments
ment, named PSPICE. An evaluation version of PSPICE suitable for and has recently become available for the Macintosh 11.
educational purposes is available at no cost. The MSDOS version of the program occupies either two
Three specific examples are presented. The first example shows a 5-1 / 4 in 360 K floppy disks or one 3-1 /2 in 720 K disk.
method of simultaneously displaying several parametric solutions. The The documentation which accompanies the evaluation
second example demonstrates a method in which PSPICE simulates an
version is contained in a README.DOC file and is min-
analog computer. The third example illustrates the solution to a non-
linear differential equation. imal. It does not contain the SPICE syntax. The syntax
may be purchased from U.C. Berkeley [2]. The PSPICE
manual (which is excellent) may be purchased from
INTRODUCTION MicroSim [3]. A textbook, specific to PSPICE has re-

I N THE 1970’s, a mainframe computer program named

SPICE was released. It was written at the University of
California at Berkeley and put in the public domain [ 11.
cently been published [4].One of several electric circuit
textbooks may be consulted [5]-[7]. The first referenced
textbook [5] has the SPICE syntax and examples inte-
SPICE is a general purpose electric circuit simulation grated throughout the text. The other two textbooks [6],
program. The allowed components are resistors, capaci- [7] have the SPICE information in appendixes. The in-
tors, inductors, mutual inductances, independent dc and formation contained in these books is fine, as far as they
ac sources, dependent sources (VCCS, VCVS, CCCS, go. However, they do not provide the information on the
CCVS), transmission lines, diodes, and transistors (BJT, nonlinear capabilities of SPICE. And, of course they do
JFET, MOSFET). Inductors, capacitors, and dependent not consider the recent enhancements to PSPICE.
sources may be nonlinear. It is not the intention of this paper to illustrate the con-
In 1984, the first version of SPICE to run on a personal ventional circuit analysis which SPICE is capable of, but
computer, named PSPICE, reached the market. PSPICE rather to illustrate some novel techniques which would
includes virtually all the features of generic SPICE, plus enhance the learning process for engineering students.
additions. The additions include gallium arsenide transis-
tors, nonlinear magnetics transformer model, voltage and USE OF HINGEDCIRCUITSTO INVESTIGATE MANY
current controlled switches, device libraries, fast Fourier CASESSIMULTANEOUSLY
transforms, and Monte Carlo analysis. Perhaps the most Occasionally, we would like to study the effect of vary-
useful addition is a graphics postprocessor program named ing one or several circuit parameters. One unconventional
PROBE. PROBE is a software oscilloscope. It allows method for accomplishing this is to clone the circuit for
CRT viewing of any waveform in the system as well as each circuit variation. The common nodes of the circuits
output to a printer or plotter. are then connected together (hinged). A single SPICE run
Unfortunately, PSPICE is not a public domain pro- then simultaneously delivers the multiple solutions.
gram. In addition, it is expensive for educational soft- As an example of this, suppose we wish to examine the
ware. However, MicroSim Corporation, the company source-free response of an R-L-C network, for the three
which sells PSPICE, makes an evaluation version avail- cases-underdamped, critically damped, and over-
able at no cost. This version is restricted to 10 transistors damped. The circuit diagram in Fig. 1 shows the hinged
and 100 nodes. This should suffice for most educational circuit for accomplishing this. Listing 1 gives the PSPICE
purposes. When the program is run, a notice encouraging file, which describes the circuit. Fig. 2 shows the output
distribution to others appears on the screen. of the PROBE program to a dot-matrix printer.
As this circuit is small, we could have demonstrated
Manuscript received April 6, 1988; revised October 24, 1988. more than three cases. In generic SPICE, there is a com-
The author is with the Department of Engineering, U . S . Merchant Ma.
rine Academy, Kings Point, NY 11024.
mand named ALTER, which allows for this operation.
IEEE Log Number 8825528. However, that command is not available in PSPICE. If it

0018-9359/89/0200-0035$01.OO @ 1989 IEEE

36 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION. VOL. 32. NO. 1. FEBRUARY 1989

LZ R C

3T---74

3 Cases of Damping of an R-L-C Circuit

R I 0 1 . S ;underdamped
R2 0 3 2 ;critically damped
R3 0 S 4 ;overdamped COMMON
CI 2 0 1 IC=S
Fig. 3. PSPICE realization of an analog integrator
c 2 4 0 1 IC=S
C 3 6 0 1 IC=S
L1121
L234 1 the old analog computers, such as amplifier drift and sat-
L3561 uration.
.TRAN .1 10 0 . I UIC The voltage-controlled voltage source (VCVS) in
.PROBE
.END SPICE is an ideal voltage amplifier. That is, it has infinite
Listing 1 input impedance and zero output impedance. Its voltage
gain can be any reasonable finite value. Therefore, we can
Fig. I . Hinged circuit with 3 R-L-C examples. construct perfect integrators by adding a resistor and a
capacitor to a VCVS. Fig. 3 shows one realization of the
integrator.
The VCVS has the capability of being controlled by
more than one voltage. Therefore, it can be used as a
combination summing device and multiplier. In the ex-
ample below, we use a VCVS in just such a manner.
We now have the tools necessary to construct an analog
computer within SPICE. As an example, we will instru-
ment the homogeneous ordinary linear second-order dif-
ferential equation shown below:
y + y + y = o
y ( 0 ) = 5, y(0) = 0. (1)
The usual method for simulating the equation is to solve
for the highest-order derivative. Then assume that the
highest order derivative is available. Integrate it repeat-
edly (twice in this case) until the lowest order (the vari-
able itself) is reached. Thus,
Fig. 2 . PROBE output of 3 R-L-C circuits. y = -y - y. (2)
The right-hand side is then instrumented using the com-
were available, it would not work with the PROBE pro- ponents described above. The loop is then closed. Fig. 4
gram, which can handle only one run at a time. is a circuit diagram of the analog computer simulation.
Listing 2 gives the PSPICE file circuit description. The
USE OF SPICE AS A N ANALOGCOMPUTER dot-matrix printer output of PROBE is shown in Fig. 5 .
The use of the patchboard-wired analog computer has The method described is a powerful analysis technique.
declined with the rise of the digital computer. However, Many different ideal blocks can be configured. In fact, we
the analog computer is an excellent tool for teaching en- could duplicate most of a block diagram type simulator
gineering students about dynamic systems. SPICE con- program, such as TUTSIM [8].
tains all the components necessary for simulating an an-
alog computer. In addition, the components can be USE OF SPICE AS A DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION SOLVER
fashioned in an ideal form such that the simulated analog Many differential equations have direct correspondence
computer does not suffer from the problems which plagued to electric circuits and can be modeled with SPICE. Since
PRIGOZY: APPLICATIONS OF SPICE 37

L1
2
1

CONTROL
CURRENT
(H1) .

Van Der Pol's Equation - MU = 1

Analog Computer Simulation of Second-Order System H I 1 0 POLY(1) V I 0 - 1 0 .33333
RI 1 2 1K L1121
R 2 3 4 1K c 1 2 3 1 IC=.OOl
c1 2 3 ,001 V I 0 3 ;Dummy Source for H1 Control Current
C2 5 4 ,001 I C = 5 .TRAN . 2 40 0 . 2 UIC
E l 3 0 0 2 100000 .PROBE
E2 5 0 0 4 100000 .END
E 3 1 0 P O L Y ( 2 ) 3 0 5 0 0 1 -1 Listing 3
.TRAN . I 20 0 . I UIC
.PROBE Fig. 6 . PSPICE realization of van der Pol's equation.
.END
Listing 2

Fig. 4 . PSPICE realization of an analog computer simulation of a second-

order system.

ANALOG CuHF'UTEFt SillULATlON OF 2ND ORDER SYSTEfl

Date/Time run 03/21/88 11 4 3 32 Temperature 21 0
-.....-.+....-...-. -..--+--.----....--..+---.-~-...---..~

Fig. 7. PROBE output giving the solution to van der Pol's equation for
= 1.

Time

Fig. 5 . PROBE output of the analog computer simulation of a second-or-

der system.
gram. Listing 3 shows the PSPICE file for a value of p
equal to 1.
In the circuit, the current is the analog of y. The voltage
SPICE has nonlinear capabilities, we will model a famous across the inductor is the analog of y. Therefore, by plot-
nonlinear equation-van der Pol's equation [9]: ting the inductor voltage versus the current we obtain the
phase portrait.
y - p ( l - y'>y +y = 0. (3) Fig. 7 shows the current versus time for the case of p
This equation is characterized by having a point of = 1. Fig. 8 shows the corresponding phase portrait which
unstable equilibrium at the origin and a limit cycle oscil- clearly demonstrates the limit cycle.
lation with an amplitude magnitude of 2.
This second-order equation can be realized by an CONCLUSION
R-L-C network. The resistance is quite nonlinear. How- From the above discussion it should be evident that
ever, it can be modeled by the current-controlled voltage -
PSPICE is a useful tool for the modeling of dynamic SYS- -
source (CCVS). Fie. 6 shows the PSPICE circuit dia-
I "
tems in a wide variety of disciplines. These include the
38 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION. VOL. 32. NO. I . FEBRUARY IYXY

PSPICE User's Guide, MicroSim Corporation, Laguna Hills, CA

92653.
P. W . Tuinenga. SPICE A Guide to Circuit Simulation & Analysis
Using PSPICE. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988.
J . David Irwin, Basic Engineering Circuit Analysis, 2nd ed. New
York: Macmillan, 1987.
D. E. Scott, Introduction to Circuit Analysis-A Systems Approuch.
New York: McCraw-Hill, 1987.
L. S. Bobrow. Elenientary Linear Ciruir Analysis. 2nd ed. New
York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1987.
TUTSIM-Continuous Dynamic Simulation Program Applied i . Palo
Alto, CA 94306.
L. A. Pipes, Applied Mathematics f o r Engineers and Physicists, 2nd
ed. New York: McCraw-Hill, 1958, pp. 703-706.

-3 0V+ ........~.+....~...--t----------+------........~.+~.....~...~
Stephen Prigozy (M'67) was born in Brooklyn.
-3 00 -2 00 -1 fJA 0 OR 1 00 2 00 3 OH
9 V(2,1)
NY. onOctober 15, 1931. He received theB.E.E.
I (V1) degree from Cornell University, Ithaca, N Y , in
1953, the M.S.E.E. degree from Columbia Uni-
Fig. 8. PROBE output giving the phase portrait of van der Pol's equation
versity, New York, NY. in 1960, and the Ph.D.
forp = I .
degree from the City University of New York, in
1974.
He has worked in the electronics industry for
study of electric circuits, differential equations, and au- 25 years as a member of Technical Staff at Bell
Telephone Laboratories; Senior Project Engineer
tomatic control systems. at Simmonds Precision Products and Airborne In-
struments Laboratory; Chief Engineer at Trygon Electronics, Inc.; Vice-
REFERENCES President at Robins Industries, Inc. and Tensor Corporation. After obtain-
ing the Ph.D. degree, Dr. Prigozy taught for two years in the engineering
[ I ] L. W . Nagel, SPICE2: A Computer Program to Simulate Semiconduc- department of the S.U.N.Y. Maritime College. For the last eight years he
tor Circuits (Memorandum No. ERL-M520), Elect. Res. Lab., Univ. has been a Professor of Engineering at the U.S. Merchant Marine Acad-
of California, Berkeley, May 9, 1975. emy, Kings Point, NY. His current areas of interest are synthesis of resis-
[2] A. Vladimirescu et al., SPICE Version 2G User's Guide, Dep. Elect. tance networks and the application of computers to the teaching of engi-
Eng. Comput. Sci.. Univ. California. Berkeley, CA 94720, Aug. 10, neering.
1981. Dr. Prigozy is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Sigma Xi.