ngspice/NEWS

Ngspice-22, Sept 26th, 2010
============

- New features:
    + OpenMP multicore support for BSIM3, BSIM4, and BSIMSOI4
    + reinstate {$var} expansion in interactive interpreter
    + .TITLE line added
    + update to 'spectrum' script
    + par('expression') in .four, .plot, .print, .meas, .save commands
    + command 'option' for use in spinit, .spiceinit, and in scripts
    + adms procedure updated
    + new random number generator, random functions sunif() and sgauss()
    + ngspice manual updated 

- Bug fixes:
    + Major code cleanup to reduce compiler/linker warnings: ansi function prototypes, 
      void/char pointers to named pointers, explicit type casts and many more  
    + Many small bugs


Ng-spice-rework-21, Jun3, 13th 2010
============

- Updated Devices: BSIMSOI 4.3.1
	
- New features:	
    + Compatibility: C, L, R, devices and E, G sources with expressions 
	  Variables HERTZ, TIME, TEMPER added
    + E, G sources with pwl function
    + New manual
	+ Plotting with Gnuplot, 
	+ Writing wrdata for simple text table to file
	+ .measure improved
	+ transmission line models improved

- Bug fixes:
    + Many small bugs, memory leaks, memory overflows

Ng-spice-rework-20, November, 16th 2009
============

Ngspice release 20 is the second release of the simulator in 2009.

- Fixes: model names starting with a number (1n4001) are now correctly parsed. 
  The .global command has been reinstated (it was previously disabled) and 
  error messages now display the corresponding line numberin the input deck.
- New Features: .measure command for transient, ac and dc analyses (still not 
  complete, e.g. DERIV is missing).
- Devices: Updated BISM4 model to revision 4.6.5. Added PWL (PieceWise Linear) 
  functionality for B (arbitrary generator) sources.

	
Ng-spice-rework-19, April, 23rd 2009
============

Ngspice release 19 came early after release 18. It reveals an important work 
in compile scripts, many bug fixes in memory management, interface, and work in device models.

- Compile scripts: tclspice and ADMS compiling fixes. Architecture compiling 
  fixes for SunOS, MS Visual Studio, MINGW, Cygwin.
- Memory management: fixed memory leaks, modifies memory management for 
  MS Windows, integration of espice bugfixes and enhancements, bug fixes in 
  plots and cli interface.
- Rework of BSim models, integration of EPFL-EKV model V2.63, ADMS models 
  mextram, hicum0, hicum2. 


Ng-spice-rework-18
============

Rework-18 is introduces several new features into ngspice. This is a major
release that comes after more than three years. During the silent years
ngspice developers worked in CVS to stabilize and introduce new features
into the simulator.

- Tclspice simulator library has been merged with ngspice. Now you can
  compile ngapice or tclspice by asserting a configure switch. See README.tcl
- New options have been introduced: brief, listing, autostop and scale
- Support for .lib file has been introduced. This allows the use of
  third party model libraries in ngspice.
- .measure statements: avg, integ, rms, max, min, delay, param
- .global statements t support for global nodes whose name is not expanded
  when flattening the netlist.
- .func macros for inlining functions into netlists.
- Improved the numparam library to support fully parametrized netlists.
- BSIM model binning.
- new multi-input gate VCVS using XSPICE extensions.


Ng-spice-rework-17
============

This is a bug fix release. Previous release tarball did not included 
an include file necessary for compiling numparam library.


Ng-spice-rework-16
============

Rework-16 comes out after almost one year of CVS development (from
15-fixedRC3). This release improves ngspice in three ways:

- Bug fixing: most of the bugs that affected rework-15 have been fixed,
    thus ngspice is more stable, especially the xspice extension, the 
    subcircuit (X devices) handling and the numparam library.
    
- New features: netlist syntax has been expandend allowing for end-of-line
    comments. A ".global" card has beed added to define global nodes, i.e. 
    nodes that are not expanded in subcircuits. It is possible to define TC 
    for resistors on the instance line. The editline library can be used
    instead of readline (no more GPL license violation).

- Porting: ngspice now works (with xspice extension) on Windows using 
           MINGW/MSYS.     
        

Ng-spice-rework-15
============

Rework-15 release is a giant leap forward for ngspice. It incorporates 
many (read most) of the improvements implemented in tclspice during the 
two years long "sleep" of ngspice and adds many others. The incomplete 
list of new features incorporated are:  

  - Xspice simulator (with codemodel dynamic loading support):
     a mixed signal simulator built upon spice3.
     
  - Cider simulator:
     a mixed level simulator built upon spice3.
     
  - Numparam library:
     a library that allows for parameter substitution at netlist level.
     
  - Improved models:
     Diode model includes periphery effects and high level of injection effects,
     BJT and BJT2 enhanced.
     BSIM3 now includes ACM.
     BSIM4 implementation corrected.
     
   -New models:
     VBIC (3 Terminals, no excess phase and thermal network),
     HiSIM.
     
   - Frontend leaks closed.
      Now frontend works as it should.
      
   - Many new example file.
   
   - Xgraph plotting program included.


Ng-spice-rework-14
============

This is a major release in terms of bug-fixes. Some enhancements
have been included: BSIM4 model and support for EKV model. The 
source code for the latter must be obtained from EKV web site
(see DEVICE for more info). To enable EKV support you have
to obtain the code first and then use the configure switch
"--enable-ekv". 

The spice code contains an option to debug frontend code, now
this is available in configure as "--enable-ftedebug".



Ng-spice-rework-13
============

This is a major release in terms of fixes and enhancements.
A garbage collector support has been added. If the configuration
script detects that you have installed GC (Bohem-Weiser conservative 
garbage collector), it will use it. Some memory leaks have been 
fixed too.

Enhancements to the code comes from Alan's contribute code, a 
description of improvements follows (extracted form Alan's mail):

Output File Format Changes -

  Rawfile format changed to PSPICE Probe format (Usable with
  Demo version of Microsim's Probe).
  
  (NOTE: Do not rely on this, we may revert to the old format 
   in the next release). 

  Text mode .OP results even though "rawfile" written.

  Internal device nodes are not saved to "rawfile" (reduces
  file size). Optionally, these internal nodes can be replaced
  by device currents and saved.


DC Convergence Enhancements -

  "Source-Stepping" algorithm modified with a "Dynamic" step size.
  After each successful step, the node voltages are saved, the
  source-factor is increased by the step-factor, and the step-factor
  is increased (for the next step). If the step fails, i.e. the
  circuit does not converge, the source-factor is set to the value
  from the previous successful step, the previously stored node
  voltages are restored, the step-factor is reduced, the source
  factor is increased by this smaller step-factor, and convergence
  is attempted again.

  Same thing done for "Gmin-stepping" algorithm.

  "Gshunt" option added. This sets the "diagGmin" variable used in
  the gmin-stepping algorithm to a non-zero value for the final
  solution. (Normally this is set to zero for the final solution).
  This helps for circuits with floating nodes (and for some others
  too).

  The Gmin implementation across the substrate diodes of MOS1, MOS2,
  MOS3, MOS6 and BSIM3 devices, and across BJT base-emitter and
  base-collector diodes, was incorrect. Correcting this dramatically
  improved DC convergence. (I think this also affects BSIM1 and 2
  but I haven't fixed them yet !)

  The gm, gmb and gds calculations in the MOS3 model were all wrong.
  The device equations were fixed, leading to much improved
  convergence.

  The Vcrit value used for diode voltage limiting was calculated
  without taking into account the device area (and in some cases
  without using the temperature corrected saturation current).
  This could cause floating point overflows, especially in device
  models designed to be scaled by a small area, e.g. 2u by 2u diodes
  (area=4e-12). This is now fixed for Diode, BJT, MOS1, MOS2, and
  MOS3 models.

  The diode voltage limiting was modified to add negative voltage
  limiting. Negative diode voltages are now limited to 3*Vdp-10,
  where Vdp is the voltage from the previous iteration. If Vdp is
  positive, then the voltage is limited to -10V. This prevents some
  more floating point overflows. (Actually, I'm still playing with
  the best values for this).

  The Spice3 "fix" for the MOS3 gds discontinuity between the
  linear and saturated regions only works if the VMAX parameter
  is non-zero. A "tweak" has been added for the VMAX=0 case.


Transient Convergence Enhancements -

  Temperature correction of various diode capacitances was implemented
  slightly incorrectly, leading to capacitance discontinuities in
  simulations at temperatures other than nominal. This affected the
  Diode and MOS3 models.

  A mistake in the implementation of the MOS3 source-bulk capacitance
  model resulted in a charge storage discontinuity. This has been fixed.

  The level 2 MOSFET model seems to calculate Von and Vth values for
  the threshold and subthreshold values respectively, but then uses
  Vbin to calculate the Vdsat voltage used to find the drain current.
  However, a jump statement uses Von to decide that the device is in
  the "cutoff" region, which means that when this jump allows the
  drain current to be calculated, Vdsat can already be well above
  zero. This leads to a discontinuity of drain current with respect
  to gate voltage. The code is now modified to use Vbin for the jump
  decision. It looks like the code should actually use Vth as the
  threshold voltage, but since PSPICE and HSPICE both follow the
  original Berkeley code, this was left alone.


New Model Parameters -

  A PSPICE/HSPICE-like "M" device parameter (i.e. M devices in
  parallel) was added to the MOS1,2,3 and BSIM3 mosfet models.

  
Input Read-in and Checking -

  Numbers beginning with a + sign got the input routine confused.
  Fixed now.

  Attempts to nodeset (or .IC) non-existent nodes are flagged with a
  warning.

  PWL statements on Voltage or Current sources are now checked for
  "non-increasing" time-points at the start of the simulation.
  Previously each time-point was checked as it was reached during
  the simulation, which could be very annoying if you made a mistake
  which caused the simulation to fail after hours of run-time.
  
  A check which was performed at the end of each sub-circuit expansion
  was moved to the top level. This check makes sure that all sub-circuits
  have been defined, but in its original position, it meant that if a
  sub-circuit included ANY .MODEL statements at all, then ALL the models
  called in that sub-circuit must also be defined within that
  sub-circuit. Now SPICE behaves as expected, i.e. a subcircuit may
  define its own models, but may also use models defined at any level
  above.


Miscellaneous Fixes/Enhancements -

  MOS devices reported only half of the Meyer capacitances, and did not
  include overlap capacitances, when reporting to the .OP printout, or
  when storing device capacitances to the "rawfile".

  The ideal switch devices had no time-step control to stop their
  controlling voltages/currents overshooting the switching thresholds.
  The time-step control has been modified to use the last two time
  points to estimate if the next one will move the controlling
  voltage/current past a switching threshold. If this looks likely,
  then the time-step is reduced.

  The "rawfile" writing routines have been modified to print the
  "reference value" to the console during the simulation. This lets
  the user see exactly how far and how fast the simulation is
  proceeding. 

  .OP printout tidied up a lot to make the printout clearer.

  Analysis order changed to fix a "feature" where, if you ask for
  a .OP and a .TRAN in the same simulation, the node voltages
  printed out correspond to the .OP, but the device data was from
  the last timepoint of the .TRAN


Etc. -

  There are other minor bug fixes, and changes to reduce compiler
  warnings. There are probably some more significant fixes which
  I've forgotten :-)


Ng-spice-rework-12
============
Arno did a great work this summer!
The pole-zero analysis has been corrected. The error was introduced 
in an attempt to eliminate compiler warnings. The source has been 
reworked and info file have been updated. As you may see, a new dir 
called "spicelib" has been created, another step toward the separation
of the simulator from the frontend. 

Ng-spice-rework-11
============

Resistor code (device) has been modified to conform to spice3 device 
coding standard. 
A new step function (U2) has been introduced.
Documentation updated.

Ng-spice-rework-10
============

Added BSIM4 model and closed a couple of serious bugs. Added DEVICES
file to distribution. This file contains the status of device models
in this simulator. Read it, this file can save you a lot of time.

Ng-spice-rework-9
============

Thanks to Arno Peters now all device models are dynamically loaded on
demand.  They are linked as shared libraries. The next step is the
dlopen() one which will make possible to link devices without any
recompilation.



Ng-spice-rework-8
============

Applied Arno's patch.

From his mail message:

Hi Paolo,

I have prepared a source cleaning patch.

Features:

  + patches don't get polluted with differences between automatically
  generated Makefile.am files.  Usually these make up the biggest part
  of the patches.  This allows me to read the patch on the mailing
  list instead of sifting through 90% redundant and irrelevant changes.

  + the shell script autogen.sh automatically regenerates the required
  files if the user has automake, autoconf and libtool installed.

  + this feature is only valuable to developers, not to end users.


Usage of this patch, once incorporated:

  # create a working tree to work from
  cp -a ng-spice-rework-x ng-spice
  
  [ Changes made to ng-spice ]

  # clean up all the automatically generated files
  cd ng-spice; make maintainer-clean

  # extract the differences
  diff -ruN ng-spice-rework-x ng-spice > my.patch

  [ Patch sent to ng-spice mailing list or you ]

  # incorporate changes into the tree
  cd ng-spice-rework-x; patch -p1 < my.patch

  # update the automatically generated files
  cd ng-spice-rework-x; sh autogen.sh




Ng-spice-rework-7 (22 Mar 2000)
============

Bug fix release



Ng-spice-rework-6 (29 Jan 2000)
============

This porting includes:

1) BSIM3V3.1 model as level 49. This is the version modified by Serban
Popescu which understands the M parameter and implements HDIF.

2) BSIM3V3.2 model al Level 50. This is the standard Berkeley version.

3) Now the resistor model can accepts two different values for DC and
AC resistance.



Ng-spice-rework-5 and 5_2  (Jan 2000)
============

Internal development release, buggy and not working. 

Ng-spice-rework-4  (22/12/99)
============

This porting includes a new feature:

1) dynamically loading of some device code as an experimental feature
for the future GPL simulator. Thanks to Arno Peters and Manu Rouat.

2) Patched the following bug (thanks to Andrew Tuckey for having
supplied the patch).
   
    * Wsw (current controlled switch) in subckt, parsing bug.
    * scale factor in arbitrary source.
    * bug in noise analysis.
    * save segmentation faults.