ABSTRACT

This chapter provides a quick tour of modern circuit simulation. It attempts to combine mathematical rigor with physical intuition, in order to provide a simple, clean exposition that links the various facets of the subject logically. The chapter shows how one can write circuit equations as nonlinear differential equations and comment on why it is a good idea to do so. It focuses on the important issue of noise analysis of circuits. The chapter outlines the fundamental concepts of basic stationary noise analysis and explain the kinds of circuits it applies to. It also focuses on special multitime partial differential equation (MPDE) forms for oscillators and also outlines how MPDEs can be used as a link to enable automatic macromodeling of time-varying systems. Advances in analog, radio frequency, digital, and mixed-signal design, combined with the effects of shrinking technologies, have spurred a renaissance in simulation.