ngspice/FAQ

  Ngspice F.A.Q.Version 2.6 (ngspice-35 release)

  Maintained by Holger Vogt
  Last update: 07-20-2021

  This document contains the Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers)
  for ngspice project.
  __________________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents


  1. INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL INFORMATION
     1.1 What is ngspice?
     1.2 What is sharedspice?
     1.3 What is tclspice ?
     1.4 Why resurrecting Berkeley's Spice?
     1.5 What is the project's goal?
     1.6 What you are going to do?
     1.7 Legal issues
     1.8 Discussion groups
     1.9 What mailing lists exist for ngspice?
     1.10 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
     1.11 Where can I get a copy of ngspice?
     1.12 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for ngspice stuff?
     1.13 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for Spice documentation?
     1.14  Are there some (official) tutorials available?

  2. DEVELOPMENT
     2.1 What is the current version?
     2.2 What are the latest features in the current release?
     2.3 What does it look like?
     2.4 Who are the authors of ngspice?
     2.5 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
     2.6 How can I join the development?

  3. SOLUTIONS TO COMMON MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS
     3.1 What systems are supported?
     3.2 I get errors when I try to compile the source code, why?
     3.3 This document didn't answer my question. Where else can I look for
         an answer?

  4. ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
     4.1 Feedback
     4.2 Formats in which this FAQ is available
     4.3 Authorship and acknowledgements
     4.4 Disclaimer and Copyright


  ______________________________________________________________________

  1.  INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL INFORMATION



 1.1 What is ngspice ?

  Ngspice is a mixed-level/mixed-signal circuit simulator, based on three
  open source software packages: Spice3f5, Cider1b1 and Xspice, and
  including many bug fixes and enhancements:

  - Spice3 is a widely used circuit simulator. It was developed by the
    University of California at Berkeley (UCB), by "a cast of thousand"
    (as they say) initially under the guide of Donald O. Peterson.

  - Cider is a mixed-level simulator that already includes Spice3f5 and
    adds a device simulator to it: DSIM. Cider couples the circuit level
    simulator to the device simulator to provide greater simulation
    accuracy (at the expense of greater simulation time). Critical
    devices can be described with technology parameters (numerical
    models) and non critical ones with the original spice's compact
    models.

  - Xspice is an extension to Spice3 that provides code modeling support
    and simulation of digital components through an embedded event
    driven algorithm.

  The NG prefix has lot of meanings: Next Generation, New (and) Good, etc.
  Choose or invent the one you prefer. The heart of the project is the
  ngspice program, with its tremendous advancements.


 1.2 What is sharedspice ?

  Sharedspice is an interface option to ngspice. It compiles the simulator
  into a shared object (or dynamic link library), providing full control
  over ngspice to any suitable controlling program (GUI, optimizer,
  development system, etc., to be provided by the user).


 1.3 What is tclspice ?

  Tclspice is a another interface option of ngspice, providing a tcl/tk
  interface to the user. Tclspice is both a batch and interactive simulator
  and a building block for simulator applications. Analyses can be run
  from a tcl script and vector plotted or post processed using tcl. A small
  GUI may be built by the user to analyze a circuit or a set of circuits.
  Tclspice is obtained compiling ngspice activating an additional option.
  This has not been used and tested for some time.


 1.4 Why resurrecting Berkeley's Spice?

  Berkeley's Spice can be considered the father of most circuit
  simulators available today. It is an old but still good piece of
  software, it may not be the fastest or the most reliable but it's
  free, it's available in source code and most of the electrical
  simulators inherited it's syntax. Spice3 is based on proven numerical
  algorithms (most commercial implementations have only strengthened
  them), implements most of the models for MOSFET submicron design
  and has a powerful set of analyses. The readily availability of
  its source code in the past made this simulator the de-facto standard.


 1.5 What is the project's goal?

  Ngspice is both a maintenance and enhancement project. It is a maintenance
  project because it aims to provide the free EDA community the best spice3
  simulator available. This means fixing bugs, adding new features but always
  in the spice3 framework. Achieving compatibility with commercial spice based
  simulators and provide users the latest devices models are important goals
  of the project. Improvements in the postprocessing (data handling
  capabilities) and user interface are other goals.


 1.6 What you are going to do?

  An official roadmap for ngspice was never drawn. Contributions made by
  developers drive ngspice development and the roadmap is built day by
  day by developers writing on the lists. Ngspice development activity
  can be summarized in 3 points:

  + Compatibility: Ngspice should be compatible with commercial products,
    thus allowing people to use the netlist generated for such tools. As
    most of the commercial simulators available tracked each other in netlist
    language, this should not be an impossible task. The most important goal
    here is to provide a reliable support for model libraries coming from
    foundries.

  + Compact models:  The interest in using ngspice is intimately connected
    to the available models. To provide the latest models available for
    active and passive devices is a fundamental goal of the project. In
    this direction we are integrating ADMS model compiler into ngspice.

  + Documentation: Commercial simulators come with very good manuals
    containing tutorials, description of models equations, example of
    use, suggestions, etc. Spice came with little documentation. The
    Spice3f manual, available on the Internet has been used as the basis
    for the new manual. It will be constantly improved during ngspice
    development and integrated with the documentation accompanying Xspice
    and Cider. The ngspice manual today contains description of all
    features ngspice is offering. It is however not a tutorial of ngspice
    usage, but there are now several good ones available on the internet
    (see http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/tutorials.html).


 1.7 Legal issues

  The ngspice base license is new BSD, as provided by UCB. For some parts
  of the code other compatible licences apply. All licenses are DFSG
  compatible. Please see file COPYING for details.


 1.8  Discussion groups

  Vivid discussion are going on in the ngspice discussion groups.
  They are found at https://sourceforge.net/p/ngspice/discussion/
  A new group 'ngspice tips and examples' will present interesting
  ngspice tips (your input is welcome!)


 1.9  What mailing lists exist for ngspice?

  Mailing lists have somewhat lost importance compared to the
  discussion groups described above.

  There are two general mailing lists dedicated to the ngspice project.

  Users mailing list: <[email protected]>
  This list is for ngspice users. Examples, problems, bug reports
  and general discussion on ngspice can be sent here.

  Developers mailing list: <[email protected]>
  The list is dedicated to ngspice development. Developers should
  subscribe here, to follow the program development. May be used
  to send patches, and technical discussion on ngspice.

  Send an empty message with Subject "help" to the following addresses
  to get instructions.

  <[email protected]>
  <[email protected]>

  Send an empty message to the following address to Subscribe.

  <[email protected]>
  <[email protected]>

  Documentation about the user interface of
  these mailing lists can be found at:
     http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member


 1.10  Are the mailing lists archived anywhere ?

  Yes, the lists are archived. There are two places where to look for
  archives. The project started on the IEEE Central and South Italy
  web server and then moved to sourceforge. Sourceforge provides an
  archiving service that cam be accessed via the summary page:

  http://sourceforge.net/p/ngspice/mailman/


 1.11  Where can I get a copy of ngspice?

  You can download ngspice from:

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/ngspice/files/ng-spice-rework/


 1.12  Where should I look on the World Wide Web for ngspice stuff?

  Look at the official Ngpice Web Page:

  http://ngspice.sourceforge.net


 1.13  Where should I look on the World Wide Web for Spice documentation?

  There is a detailed ngspice manual available at:
  http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/docs.html

  Others docs are assembled at:
  http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/literature.html


 1.14  Are there some (official) tutorials available?
 
  Yes, they are, for ngspice, ngspice within KiCAD and on eletro-thermal
  simulation. You may find them at:
  http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/tutorials.html



  2.  DEVELOPMENT


 2.1.  What is the current version?

  The latest version released is:

  * ngspice-35 (released on 07/31/2021)


 2.2.  What are the latest features in the current release?

- New features:
    + Improved VBIC model
    + Get the vector type automatically, if db, ph, cph are applied.
    + Enable finding 'spinit' if its path contains spaces.
    + Increase buffer size for command 'listing' to 4096 bytes.
    + Add compatibility modes for EAGLE (ea) and Spectre (spe).
    + Add parameter 'plain' to 'plot' command.
    + Add variables 'plainplot', 'plainwrite', 'plainlet'
    + Add RF bipolar model HICUM 2.4 to the ngspice C sources.
    + Add charge formulation for non-linear capacitors.
    + Remove outdated code from contrib and unsupported directories.
    + When installing ngspice executable, do not install the headers.
    + Add support for tc1, tc2, and m for behavioral resistors,
      which use the B source internally.
    + Add supporting E_constant Vconst 0 TABLE {Max(V(DP)-V(GN),0)}=((20,120)).
    + Remove the XSPICE limitation of the current source flag "current".
    + Remove the XSPICE dependency of the phase parameter for the
      independent current source.
    + Drastically reduce the memory requirements if there is a PDK with
      a lot of binning models (e.g. the SkyWater PDK).
    + Update to admst: Enhance the Verilog A compatibility.
    + Add most recent PSP102, Mextram504, BSIMBULK, and BSIMCMG models
      to the ngspice adms sources.
    + Model checking for BSIM4.5 will only write to file if an excursion
      is detected (still to be added to the other BSIM models)
    + Many code updates not visible to the user, but enhancing stability
      and efficiency

- Bug fixes:
    + many bugs fixed and code improvements (see bugs 523 and up)
    + memory leaks removed


 2.3.  What does it look like?

  Ngspice, as the original Spice3 (and Xspice and Cider) is a command
  line simulator, but with a graphics output capability.


 2.4.  Who are the authors of ngspice?

  The development is open to anyone who wish to contribute. If the
  original Spice3 was made with the contribution of "a cast of
  thousand", ngspice can only increase that number. An incomplete
  list of contributor makes the "acknowledgements" page of the ngspice
  manual.


 2.5.  How can I report a bug/request for a feature?

  The ngspice summary page (hosted on Sourceforge) has bug-reporting,
  feature-request and bugs trackers. You can use them or subscribe to
  mailing lists and post there. The former is preferred since almost
  it allows to track all necessary actions upon a bug. The web site at
  http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/bugrep.html will give you more details.


 2.6.  How can I join the development?

  To join the development just code the feature you want to add and send
  your patch in the mailing list.  Before you start coding check the
  latest development release of ngspice from our git repository.
  It might be that your feature has already been implemented.

  There is no bureaucracy here.



  3.  SOLUTIONS TO COMMON MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS


 3.1.  What systems are supported?

  Ngspice is written in C, and uses some GNU extensions. You may use
  a GNU C compiler and a LINUX environment to compile it. Ngspice can
  be compiled under Windows using the mingw or cygwin environment as
  well as MS Visual Studio. It will readily compile on macOS.
  FreeBSD or Solaris will do, but are not officially supported.


 3.2.  I get errors when I try to compile the source code, why?

  This is a one-million-euros question :).

  Write to the user's discussion group describing the problem and providing
  information on the type of hardware, the flavour of operating system.


 3.3.  This document didn't answer my question. Where else can I look
        for an answer?

  Read old messages from the mailing list archive, search the web site
  or read the docs.  Upgrade to the latest version of ngspice, many
  problems are fixed in the new versions.  If you still can't find an
  answer, post your question to the mailing lists.



  4.  ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


 4.1.  Feedback

  Send your comments about this F.A.Q. to:
  https://sourceforge.net/p/ngspice/discussion/127605/


 4.2.  Formats in which this FAQ is available

  This document is available only in ASCII format in the ngspice source
  package.


 4.3.  Authorship and acknowledgements

  Parts of the questions and answers originate from Paolo Nenzi
  and are updated by Holger Vogt.


 4.4.  Disclaimer and Copyright

  Copyright: Holger Vogt, 2021
  License: Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA) v4.0.
  This document is provided as is. The information in it is not
  warranted to be correct: you use it at your own risk.