[sdiy] Spice Books

[Tim Stinchcombe]

> Can anyone recommend a book/books [dead tree variety, not e-books] on 
> using Spice

Here are some candidates, all with a slightly different slant, from
starting-out level to much more specialized:

SPICE, Roberts & Sedra, Oxford University Press, 1997
 - takes simple, real-world circuits and shows how to simulate them, giving
netlists and explaining SPICE device parameters and also some of the
equations used to model the devices. Many of the examples are related to
circuits given in Sedra & Smith's 'Microelectronic Circuits' (also an
excellent book!)

The SPICE Book, Vladimirescu, Wiley, 1994
 - this is more biased toward SPICE itself, with more detail of the
parameters and the underlying equations etc. used to model all the devices;
probably fewer examples then Roberts & Sedra.

Inside SPICE, Kielkowski, McGraw-Hill, 1998
 - an excellent introduction into how the innards of SPICE works: how
devices are modelled by the very many equations; how the numeric systems
representing the circuits are set up and then solved; how the different
analysis modes work; why things sometimes go wrong ('non-convergence') and
how to fix them when they do etc. (When you really get into it, and have
some thorny simulation problem, this book is well worth it!)

Macromodeling with SPICE, Connelly & Choi, Prentice-Hall, 1992
 - probably the only book on macromodelling out there, so it is hard to find
and expensive (I think I paid something like $160-170 for my copy,
second-hand!). This one explains the many tricks that can be used to model
the 'behaviour' of a device/circuit, without resorting to strict
device-level representations - most op amp SPICE models are done this way.
This is really getting quite specialised, but occasionally I resort to it
when for example I want to see how my circuit behaves under a
current-limited voltage source, say.

There are also one or two 'SPICE for beginners' type books out there, which
I don't have, so can't comment on! Several of the big SPICE-program vendors
(Intusoft, Pspice etc.), also have great 'application' books, which show
things like how to simulate a neon bulb, or a battery discharging etc., but
again they tend to be very specialized).

Tim