HSPICE

Notes

Originated at Meta-Software in the 1980s and acquired by Synopsys in 1996; foundry models are still routinely released in HSPICE syntax.

Overview

HSPICE is Synopsys's transistor-level circuit simulator, a commercial descendant of the SPICE program from the University of California, Berkeley, now sold as PrimeSim HSPICE. It computes the electrical behaviour of a circuit from its netlist and device models, and Synopsys positions it as the golden-accuracy reference of its simulation family. It is used where accuracy matters more than speed, such as characterising standard cell and memory libraries, signal integrity analysis and checking critical analogue circuits.

How it works

An HSPICE run starts from a netlist of transistors, resistors, capacitors and sources, plus device models for the process; Synopsys says it uses foundry-certified MOS device models. The simulator sets up the circuit's nonlinear equations and solves them numerically, for example for a DC operating point, for small-signal AC behaviour across frequency, and for transient behaviour over time. The results are voltages and currents at every node, which engineers measure or inspect as waveforms.

Its uses follow from that accuracy. Library characterisation runs many short simulations of each standard cell under different conditions to build the timing and power tables that digital tools read; Synopsys credits this work, as digital design took over in the industry, with making HSPICE the reference for characterising cell libraries. Signal integrity engineers simulate a driver, package, board trace and receiver together, and analogue designers use it to verify critical blocks.

Accuracy costs capacity. Full SPICE simulation suits relatively small circuits, while larger ones move to FastSPICE simulators that simplify device models and partition the circuit to run faster, trading some accuracy. Synopsys groups HSPICE with such engines in its PrimeSim family, so a team can choose the engine per task and check fast results against HSPICE where it matters.

Examples

• Characterising a new standard cell library on a foundry process to produce the timing and power models used by synthesis and timing tools.
• Simulating a high-speed link from chip driver through package and board to receiver for signal integrity.
• Checking the read and write timing of an embedded memory, one of the uses Synopsys lists for accurate circuit simulation.
• Comparing a FastSPICE result for a large block with HSPICE on a critical sub-circuit to confirm accuracy.

Why it matters

Library characterisation engineers, analogue and mixed-signal designers, circuit simulation methodology teams and signal integrity engineers rely on it, and because faster simulators and timing models are often compared with it, an HSPICE result is commonly used to settle questions of accuracy.

Related terms

• Synopsys
• SPICE
• Spectre
• Characterisation
• Monte Carlo analysis

Where it appears on the Hub

Used on 13 pages of the Hub. In each group, the pages that mention it most come first.