"The What-If Solution for Analog Circuit Design" Now Available for Windows
95

Simulation Engine Lives Inside Popular Spreadsheet!

September 22, 1995 -- Folsom, Calif., September 11-Avista Design Systems
announces Avista Spectre/XL, "the what-if solution for analog circuit
design", is now available for Microsoft Windows 95. Avista Spectre/XL
embeds circuit simulation inside Microsoft Excel, the world's most popular
analysis and presentation package. Avista Spectre/XL's combination of
immediate access to all circuit values, and instant what if analysis gives
analog designers a uniquely flexible tool for evaluating, developing and
optimizing circuit designs. 

32-Bit Performance 

The Windows 95 release of Avista Spectre/XL delivers 32-bit performance for
the design and analysis of analog circuits. Circuit simulation by the
embedded Spectre engine runs up to 100% faster than the 16-bit Windows 3.1
version. Combined with the new Microsoft Excel version 7.0, which is up to
50% faster on average for recalculations, means designers will be more
productive in evaluating, developing and optimizing circuit designs. 

Automatic SPICE Netlist Translation 

The Windows 95 release of Avista Spectre/XL supports translation of
existing SPICE netlists to the Spectre format. Translators for both SPICE2
and SPICE3 netlists are included. Automatic translation is provided as a
menu item in the Avista Spectre/XL circuit editor. Designers can easily
take advantage of existing SPICE circuits to create better circuits in a
fast and accurate analog design environment. 

Advances Art of Analog Design 

"The last significant advance in analog design tools was 12 years ago, when
the SPICE simulator was integrated with CAE workstations," said Paul W.
Tuinenga, head of Avista Design Systems. "We are advancing the art of
analog design with Avista Spectre/XL. To do this, we had to redesign
analog circuit analysis for the desktop and abandon the 'card-deck
mentality' of traditional circuit simulators, like SPICE, that were
designed for the mainframe. Avista Spectre/XL eliminates the bottleneck of
sequentially processing one circuit and one analysis at a time, while
still using the same numeric and modeling algorithms as SPICE and Spectre
from U.C. Berkeley. 

Mr. Tuinenga continued, "For even the simplest circuits, designers need
several 'measurements' and detailed performance calculations before they
can qualify a circuit or make design trade-offs. Avista Spectre/XL
conveniently organizes this process onto a single spreadsheet. Using
several spreadsheets, an engineer can encapsulate an entire system design
in a single Excel-based workbook. To improve circuits, Avista Spectre/XL
can perform what-if analysis of specifications, not just report voltages
and currents. Designers can even program Avista Spectre/XL to automate
changes, tuning a circuit to new specifications. This marks a new level of
productivity for analog designers." 

As a founder of MicroSim in 1984, and author of SPICE-A Guide to Circuit
Simulation and Analysis Using PSpice (3rd ed. Prentice-Hall, 1995), Mr.
Tuinenga has a broad perspective on analog design tools. "For so many
years, CAE companies have focused on improving SPICE instead of looking at
the customer's design problem and creating a better tool. Did we 'pump up'
Excel to evaluate circuits or did we 'pump up' Spectre to organize,
analyze and present results?" asked Mr. Tuinenga. "Either way the designer
wins!" 

Complements SPICE Analysis

Avista Spectre/XL complements SPICE analysis and brings unique benefits to
analog designers using SPICE. Like SPICE, Avista Spectre/XL assists at the
beginning of the design cycle when design ideas are tested. Avista
Spectre/XL's spreadsheet user interface offers more powerful ways to do
what-if analysis that leads to better insight and improved circuit
performance. 

Avista Spectre/XL can quickly solve problems that are tough for SPICE
simulators. For example, using SPICE to determine the steady-state
behavior of non-linear circuits can result in extremely long simulations
due to start-up transients. Errors can also occur when SPICE transient
analysis computes the response of high-Q circuits. Avista Spectre/XL's
fast and accurate calculation of steady-state non-linear response
distinguishes it from traditional SPICE transient analysis. 

The Avista Spectre/XL system supports SPICE3 device models and netlists, so
engineers can leverage their current investment in simulation models and
circuit designs. Designers can now take advantage of the speed and insight
of Avista Spectre/XL for design work without the speed penalty of using
SPICE for each design iteration. 

Open Circuit Simulation and Analysis Environment

Avista Spectre/XL makes the Spectre simulation engine and its algorithms
available inside Microsoft Excel. This extends Excel, which is a familiar
'home base' for engineers, to include circuit simulation and analysis,
with quality presentation and optimization at no extra charge. 

"SPICE matched the workbench metaphor quite well," said Tuinenga. "However,
one problem with the SPICE workbench is its instruments have fixed
capabilities defined by the SPICE vendor. For example, if you need to
sweep a notch frequency exactly, based on component values in your design,
SPICE will not do this. Instead, you have to ping-pong between simulation
and post-processing, just like adjusting a signal generator and
oscilloscope. Fighting the simulator to get answers comes from being
locked into the vendor's policy of how they think you should use your
tool." 

"We wanted to do better than that," continued Tuinenga. "In the test and
measurement field you will find 'virtual' instruments offered by National
Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, and others. These products combine real
measurements with software that customizes analysis and presentation for
the task at hand. These tools are not locked into arbitrary limits set by
the vendor. We are doing a similar thing for circuit simulation." 

Avista Spectre/XL extends the workbench metaphor of traditional simulators,
like SPICE, by providing open access to the simulation engine and its
algorithms. Open access takes you beyond the way SPICE lets you design
circuits to ways defined by the circuit design task itself. Avista
Spectre/XL lets the design task determine how you get results and analyze
the performance of your design. 

Spectre/XL Extends What-if Analysis to Analog Design

In the digital design arena, engineers expect interactive what-if design
tools that can change circuit operation "on the fly." For analog
designers, Avista Spectre/XL enhances Microsoft Excel's interactive
what-if analysis by embedding the core of the Spectre simulator from the
University of California, Berkeley. Avista Spectre/XL extends Excel, a
familiar tool to engineers, to implement a "live document interface" for
circuit analysis. Live interaction with a circuit idea can shorten design
cycles, accelerate exploration of more design alternatives, and increase
product quality. 

"One unexpected response came from the pre-release demonstrations of Avista
Spectre/XL," said Tuinenga. "One customer remarked, 'I m not used to
having all of this flexibility and programmability.' We were delighted to
hear Avista Spectre/XL will let engineers rethink how to analyze and
improve designs." 

Analog Information at Your Fingertips

Avista Spectre/XL directly evaluates electrical circuit response without
using output files or interchange formats. Since each response is
available as an Excel spreadsheet function, designers do not struggle with
the edit-simulate-postprocess-view cycle of "seamlessly integrated" tools.
Like any other Excel spreadsheet function, Avista Spectre/XL functions can
be combined in formulas, used in design calculations, organized into
tables, or charted. Excel's automated charting of calculated data
completes the picture for creating better designs more quickly. 

Optimization of DC, Linear and Non-Linear Performance

In Avista Spectre/XL, spreadsheet functions return DC (operating point), AC
(small-signal), or non-linear frequency (spectral) responses. Avista
Spectre/XL allows simultaneous investigation of these responses, which
leads to a deeper insight into the trade-offs of a design. To meet
performance goals, Avista Spectre/XL can use Excel's built-in Goal Seek
and Solver optimizing functions to improve designs automatically. 

Spectre/XL Integrates into Microsoft Office

Avista Spectre/XL is an integrated extension of Microsoft Excel, the most
popular Windows spreadsheet. Excel is a member of the Microsoft Office
suite of productivity tools that work alike and work together, and
features a powerful user interface that helps users work faster and
smarter. Even before ISO 9000 and Six-Sigma reporting requirements for
design documentation, electrical engineers spent 25% of their time
creating documentation. By using object technology in Microsoft Windows,
analysis data, graphs, and circuit descriptions are only a drag-and-drop
away from an engineer's report or presentation. Avista Spectre/XL's
integration into Excel and Office makes project documentation, planning,
and report writing easier, faster and more accurate. 

Unique Benefits

Avista Spectre/XL's spreadsheet functions provide circuit responses only
when and where they are required, saving the user from struggling with
output file processing. Excel's unique charting capability with over 100
different chart types (including 3D surface plots) surpasses the waveform
viewer supplied with many analog design tools. Optimization of component
values to achieve design specifications and tabular display of complex
design trade-offs are some of the unique what-if analysis features that
advance the art of analog design. 

Price and Availability

Avista Spectre/XL for Windows 95 is priced at $795 and is available October
1995. The operating environment for Avista Spectre/XL requires Microsoft
Excel 7.0 for Windows 95. 

Avista Design Systems
710 Figueroa St
Folsom, CA 95630

Telephone/Fax: 1-(916 or 800)-985-6080
Faxback:       1-(916 or 800)-985-6080
Email:         avista@avista.com
Internet:      http://www.avista.com 

Avista Design Systems is an EDA software firm specializing in design tools
that advance the art of analog design. Avista Design Systems, products
provide a qualitative advance in tools for analog circuit design by
integrating accurate electrical analysis with the familiar environment of
Microsoft Office. Avista Design Systems is headquartered in Folsom,
Calif., just outside Sacramento.
 
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