Cadence Spectre Vs Synposys HSpice

[gentle.near@gmail.com]

Hi All and @Andrew Beckett

Can you please help me to understand the basic differences between
Cadence Spectre Circuit Simulator and 'Synopsys HSpice' ? I don't seem
to have license for Cadence Spectre, is there any way I can trial
version for few days? Else, I can manage with HSpice, but for that I
want to understand how close these tools are. Please advice.

Thanks

 

[Andrew Beckett]

gentle.near@gmail.com wrote, on 05/12/09 06:37:

Hi All and @Andrew Beckett

Can you please help me to understand the basic differences between
Cadence Spectre Circuit Simulator and 'Synopsys HSpice' ? I don't seem
to have license for Cadence Spectre, is there any way I can trial
version for few days? Else, I can manage with HSpice, but for that I
want to understand how close these tools are. Please advice.

Thanks

For high level details, consult these pages and the datasheets on each:

http://www.cadence.com/products/cic/multimode_simulation
http://www.cadence.com/products/cic/spectre_circuit
http://www.cadence.com/products/cic/accelerated_parallel

It's a little hard to give the details of the differences here - the best thing
is to contact your local Cadence office (I've no idea where you are based or who
you work for), and then they can take you through it in person, and sort out
evaluation criteria and so on.

Best Regards,

Andrew.

 

[Riad KACED]

Hi,

I usually find it hard to add comments on top of Andrew's but I think
I could say few things on this one
Is there any particular reason you want to switch from Hspice to
Spectre ? Or just nosy seeing the difference ? Do you know whether
your foundry does provide Spectre model files or not ?
What do you intend to simulate ? Analog, Mixed Signal ? RF ?
Both HSPICE and SPECTRE are well established industry standards and
silicon-proven Spice simulators. Having said that, most of the
foundries I'm working with are using HSPICE as the master Simulator
and for model extraction. The HSPICE models are then derived into
Spectre, Eldo ... Spectre is the best ever simulator in terms of
integration into DFII and usage with AMS designer, Voltage Storm. This
is normal as you would imagine. Besides, with Spectre you could use
ocean scripting and thus Skill which rather powerful. I hate it at the
beginning because most of my experience was with Eldo but I quite like
it now. Having said that, I have worked with Analog guys who preferred
Hspice in terms of functionality. Personally I can't make any comment
on this given my very weak experience, I don't want to hold
unsubstantiated rumors. You could give it a look on the Internet
though. Just search Spectre versus Hspice in Google or in the
Designer's guide web site. These are couple of links I was reading
about this evening:
1. http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1172867055
2. http://www.deepchip.com/items/snug05-18.html

And there are loads of others ... Make your opinion ...

Cheers,
Riad.