ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial.

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This is the second time you are going to use a simulation program today. I will repeat the
information given at the beginning of the first tutorial in case you aren’t running them
consecutively. We can model electronic components quite well since many of the electrical
properties are well understood. There is no better way than using a computer program to
simulate or predict what will happen to our circuit when we construct it and run it. I used a
simulation program when I was in industry to check on my circuits. I did this to see if it does
what I intended it to do. I would simulate even when it was a simple or often used circuit. It can
keep you from making a silly error which is critical when making circuit boards for example. We
have available to us one of the better schematic capture, board layout and simulation software
suites on campus. It is a set of development tools offered by Cadence. We will only be learning
about the PSpice simulation capabilities of Cadence today with simple simulation examples.

Cadence software is run as tethered software in the 170 lab. You must first authorize the use
of this software by going to http://tethered.cae.wisc.edu/authorize and enter your cae user
name and password. Do NOT run this software from the CAE application server on the 170
machines. It is available on the application server so you can use it in the CAE computer labs.

You are going to create your own project file this time. I suggest you save a file named
Lab3Fig5 in I:\Circuits\170. This is a good place to keep your files safe and available when you
at a CAE lab computer.

If Cadence isn’t already running double click the ‘Design Entry CIS’ Icon. Select ‘Allegro PCB
Design CIS L’ in the Cadence Product Choices window that opens.

There may be a few error statements as the program starts up. You can ignore most of these.
The program will open. Be patient it takes about 30 seconds to start. Select ‘New’ and ‘Project’
from the ‘File’ drop down menu.
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

Type in I:/Circuits/170 and Lab3Fig5.opj and select ‘Analog or Mixed A/D’ and press OK.

The create PSpice Project window will come up. This time select ‘Create based on an existing
project’ radio button. The AnalogGndSymbol.opj is the right project to start with. This will be
the default starting project until you decide to change the default.
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

The ‘Analog or Mixed A/D’ window should appear. Yours will have the name of your project as
the file name under Design Resources.

Navigate down to the SCHEMATIC1 directory and double click ‘PAGE1’ to open the
schematic.
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

The schematic with one ground symbol and some instruction text, which you can delete, will
show up. You can also delete the circle with the GND_0 text above it. The significant thing
about this schematic is the ground symbol with the 0 next to it. PSpice needs this to work.

If you delete the wrong thing CTL-Z will undo the last thing you did. If you want to zoom in click
near the ground symbol and press the + key. It can make some operations easier to implement
when you are zoomed in.
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

Now you need to put the parts of the circuit onto the page. We get the parts from libraries that
are on the system. Here’s how. Click on the Place drop down menu. Click on Part and the
place part window will open. You can also push the ‘P’ key, if the schematic1:page1 window is
the active window, without using the drop down menu and the same window will open.

Great there are no libraries to choose from. Note: there will be libraries if you have added them
before. OK so click on the ‘Add Library’ button and the Browse File window will open at the
correct library for pspice. Note the directory will be the last one you used if you have been here
before.
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

You want to add the analog.olb and source.olb libraries for this session. Analog.olb contains
passive parts like resistors and some active parts like dependent voltage source. Source
contains DC and AC sources you will use in your simulation.

Press OK when R is selected and a resistor will show up at you mouse cursor. Click the left
mouse button to place the resistor on the schematic at the cursor location. The copy of the
resistor will remain attached to your cursor as you place resistors into the schematic until you
press ‘ESC’. While the resistor is on the cursor you can change the orientation by pressing the
‘R’ key to rotate it. If you press the right mouse button other choices will be displayed. Normally
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

the part number i.e. R1 will increment as you place each component. The numbering starts
with the last number you placed +1.

Choose the VDC source and place it in the schematic.

Now change the values the resistors and DC source. I will explain how to do this. Double click
the Value of the R1 resistor. The ‘Display Properties’ window should appear. Change the 1K to
the value of your resistor. Repeat this procedure for the rest of the resistors and the DC
voltage source.
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

Once the values are correct you should setup the simulation. Start by selecting ‘New
Simulation Profile’ from the PSpice drop down menu. Or ‘Edit Simulation Profile’ If you already
created one. Name the simulation bias. Bias is a name typically given to a simulation that
calculates the DC operating voltages of the circuit. Press ‘Create’.

Click OK to save your simulation settings.

Next you should enable the Bias Current and Voltage Display options from the Bias Point drop
down menu. Under Preferences set the number of displayed digits to 3.
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

Now select Run from the PSpice drop down menu. The following Undo warning will appear.
Select Yes.

The PSpice Netlist Generation window will briefly display and an AMS Simulator will open up.

When the simulation is done running the Schematic:Page1 should look similar to the following
figure.
ECE170 Lab3 Figure 5 Spice Tutorial. Leave this document in the Lab

Your values will are close to the components and wires. Just drag them away so it looks nice
as in the following figure if you want to make it more readable.

Your currents and voltages will be different because you probably don’t have the same
resistors and voltage source values.