Posted in News, Software Hacks Tagged cadence, LTSpice, PSpice, SPICE, texas instruments, ti Post navigation

Of course, LTSpice is quite capable, too. We also liked the recent Micro-Cap 12 release, but we don’t expect any updates for that. Still, the price is right and it is a great piece of software. We couldn’t get it to work under Wine, but a Windows 10 VM handled it fine, although we really hate running a VM if we don’t have to. The only thing that bummed us out? It runs under Windows. This is a great opportunity to drive some serious software that is widely used in the industry. Mixed signal designs are supported and there is a wealth of data plotting options, as you would expect. In any event, you still get AC, DC, and transient analysis with plenty of options like worst-case timing analysis. We aren’t completely sure what “from web” means there, but presumably they just mean from other sources. However, if 3rd party models are imported, a user will be able to plot a maximum of 3 signals at a time of their choice when any 3rd party model is imported from web. There is no limitation of how many 3rd party models can be imported into the design. If you want to use other models, you can, but that’s where the limitations hit you: According to the datasheet, there are no size or simulation complexity limitations in that case. There seem to be few limits as long as you stick to the supplied library.

The downloaded program has TI models along with other standard models. The program requires registration and an approval step to get a license key. You can see a promotional overview video below. You’ve probably heard of PSpice - it’s widely used in academia and industry, but is usually quite costly. Texas Instruments long offered TINA, but recently they’ve joined with Cadence to make OrCAD PSpice available for free with some restrictions.

Free download cadence switch