Overview

This chapter is an introduction to the Analog Deivce reference and the Digital/Mixed Signal Device Reference.

The device reference chapters describe all simulator devices at the netlist level. The netlist consists of a list of component definitions, along with simulator commands, which the simulator can understand. Simple components, such as resistors just need a value to define them. Other more complicated devices such as transistors need a number of parameters to describe their characteristics.

The device references includes details of all device and model parameters. Using the schematic editor and model library you may not often need to read this section. Some of the devices, however, have advanced options not directly supported by the user interface. For example, many devices allow a local temperature to be specified. This requires the component value to be appended with TEMP=.... This device parameter and others are documented here.

Note that many parts either supplied with SIMetrix or available from component manufacturers are implemented as subcircuits. These are circuit designs to simulate the behaviour of high level devices such as opamps. SIMetrix (and all other SPICE simulators) do not have an opamp device built in but use these macro models instead. Full documentation for these devices is beyond the scope of this manual but can sometimes be obtained from their suppliers.