kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Holger Vogt <holger.vogt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

To be honest, you are too fast (for me)!

May I ask you to correct me or enhance my following summary:

Goal is a sort of system simulation, where the system consists of a chip 
driving a PCB channel, which connects to a receiver chip.

To simulate this, I need a simulator with models for the driver, the PCB 
channel and the receiver.

Of interest is a time based (transient) simulation to verify signal 
integrity. Any other simulation type required?

If one has spice models for the driving chip, the PCB channel, and the 
receiving chip, transient simulation can be done completely within spice.

Often spice models for complete chips are not available (too complex, 
proprietary etc). Here now IBIS comes into play, offering special models 
for driver and receiver only, without further chip functionality. IBIS 
models are provided by the chip makers.

The PCB channel model may be obtained by a parasitics extractor (as in 
IC work), which yields a lumped element model (RLCG, transmission 
lines). Extraction may be done by a calibrated structure look-up, and/or 
by 2D, 3D EM simulation.

Enhanced Spice (understanding IBIS) or a dedicated simulator will be 
needed to do the simulation work.

If the above summary can serve as the base of a specification, I could 
come up with some suggestions how to add the IBIS models into ngspice, 
which is integrated into KiCad anyway. However, we also need the 
'parasitics extractor'.