Ngspice-26, Jan 4th, 2014 ============ - New features: + fft command may (optionally) use fftw3 library + add nint() rounding function + usage of 'temper' in behavioral devices + check for soa (safe operating area) in several device models + library processing rewritten completely to enhance ngspice compatibility (.lib) + include file processing rewritten to allow nesting and various absolute and relative path names (.inc) + asinh, acosh, atanh functions + shared ngspice option added: ngspice optionally compiles as a shared object or dynamic link library + use a hash table to massively speed up parsing the netlist + implement a very basic .if/.else block + implement a signed power function `pwr' for controlled sources + implement multiplier `m' in F, G source + apply Area Calculation Method (ACM) to the bsim3v3.3 model + implement `tc1', `tc2' instance parameters - Bug fixes: + many, many ... please see http://sourceforge.net/p/ngspice/ngspice/ci/master/tree/ and check the 'history' button on the upper right. + removed memory leaks Ngspice-25, Jan 4th, 2013 ============ - New features: + add temperature coefficients for B source + commands "mdump", "mrdump" to dump matrix to file + allow `time', `temper', and `hertz' in expressions with behavioral R, L, C + Enable ctrl-c to interrupt a simulation also for Windows GUI + tests/bsim4: use the standard CMC model qa check + implement exit code for command "quit" + .nodeset all = value + memristor code model in extradev + new scalable diode model including tunnel component + variable xtrtol may override the XSPICE reduction of trtol + XSPICE example: delta-sigma converter + XSPICE: new d_source model + new option noopac + bsim3: make additonal parameters accessible with @mxx[par] + enable Mac OS X compilation + option reseries = val + commands "snsave", "snload" + update hisim to version 2.7.0, new qa tests + hisimhv update to version 1.2.3, new qa tests + allow Ctrl-d to quit + jfet model temperature extension, tcv and bex parameter + speed up vector handling by hash table for vector address storage and retrieval + update PSS code - Bug fixes: + many, many ... please see http://ngspice.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=ngspice/ngspice;a=shortlog;pg=0 + remove memory leaks + update tclspice for MS Windows + adms3 removed due to licensing issues Ngspice-24, Jan 29th, 2012 ============ - New features: + .csparam allows to tranfer a param into a vector in .control ... .endc + functions floor and ceil + syntax Gxxx n1 n2 TABLE {expression} = (x0, y0) (x1, y1) (x2, y2) + syntax Gxxx n1 n2 value={equation} or Exxx n1 n2 value={equation} + variable strict_errorhandling to exit ngspice with exit code 1 if any error occurs during circuit parsing + command altermod allows reading from file + command "devhelp" to show available devices and describe device parameters + command "inventory" to print the number of istances of each device. + function cph(vec) delivers phase from a vector without jumps at +-PI + enable 64 bit compilation in MS Visual Studio + --adms3 flag to compile with (experimental) adms code + still very experimental pss code + command 'remcirc' to remove a circuit from the list + command 'wrdata' aknowledges appendwrite and prints complex variables + allow comment lines inside of command files + path variable NGSPICE_INPUT + 'Filesource' code model - Bug fixes: + More on prototypes, type casts, reordering of functions, compiler warnings + fix a numerical problem in the hisim2 and hisimhv models + plot i(vdd) from a loaded rawfile + fix the guard for device generated internal nodes (via CKTmkVolt()) + reduce memory leaks for command 'reset' + parameter processing for nested .subckt + bsim4/b4noi.c: correct init the correlated noise slot in noiseDens and lnNdens vector + Many small bugs Ngspice-23, June 5th, 2011 ============ - New features: + Reduction of trtol to 1 only if 'A' devices in the circuit and xspice is enabled + command wrs2p to write a s-parameter file using Touchstone vers. 1 format + d_source d_state d_ram, test cases for those xspice codemodels + transient noise simulation added to independent voltage and current sources + Random telegraph noise added to independent voltage and current sources + 'time = nnn' in stop command added + random voltage generator option trrandom to independent voltage and current sources + ngspice build possible in a separate directory (e.g. in ng-spice-rework/release) + update FIND .. WHEN measurements + diode & bjt temperature model update with tlev and tlevc + merge bsim3v1a code with bsim3v0 and bsim3v1s code with bsim3v1 + bjt2: removed - all GP extensions of this model are now in the bjt model + HiSIM_HV model vers. 1.2.1 added + bsim3v32: delvto and mulu0 as instance parameters + Replace HiSIM1 by HiSIM_2.5.1_Release_20110407 - Bug fixes: + More on prototypes, type casts, reordering of functions, compiler warnings + allow models like 2N2904 or 2SK136 also in subcircuits + fix sensitvity calculation (for the dc-2+.cir testcase) + allow multiple call to setup w/ correct node collapsing + Many small bugs 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 - (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 other SPICE simulators follow the original Berkeley code, this was left alone. New Model Parameters - A device multiplier instance parameter "M" (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.