Those who write compact models for use in circuit simulation need a basic understanding of what goes on inside a circuit simulator. This presentation is a short introduction for beginners. It briefly covers how circuit equations (so-called Differential Algebraic Equations, DAEs) are built up and how they are solved to find the circuits' steady state solutions (by Newton Raphson iteration). It also discusses how circuits are defined (in netlist format), how different kinds of analyses (DC, AC, and TRAN) are run, and how results are displayed and interpreted.

Aadithya V. Karthik is a PhD student (2009-present) in Prof. Roychowdhury's group at the Design, Modelling, and Analysis (DMA) Center (formerly known as the Donald O. Pederson Center) in the EECS Department at The University of California, Berkeley. He received his Bachelor's degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 2009. His research interests include the development of algorithmic and computational techniques for the design, analysis, simulation, and verification of current and future generation large-scale electronic components and systems -- analog, digital, and mixed-signal.

NEEDS: Nano-Engineered Electronic Device Simulation Node

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Aadithya V Karthik (2014), "A Quick Circuit Simulation Primer," https://nanohub.org/resources/20610.

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1. NCN Group - Circuits
2. NEEDS node