2021-07-29 –, Red
Analog circuit simulation is widely used to design and verify analog circuits before they are manufactured. We present a novel, composable SPICE simulator written entirely in Julia, called JuliaSPICE.
Modern analog design and verification requires semi-custom and complex flows that are difficult to construct with commercial tools since they are built around rigid command-line batch flows. In comparison, JuliaSPICE is built from the ground up for flexibility with a full Julia API so users can automate complex tasks without using slow disk IO and parsers. User-defined measurements or checks, written in Julia, can be executed inline with the simulator allowing the designer to dynamically alter the simulation and make on-the-fly measurements JuliaSPICE is also advancing the latest ML techniques with surrogate models and is funded by a DARPA award with the goal of delivering a 1000x speed-up over traditional approaches. The composability of a Julia solution will be demonstrated from within a Pluto notebook, showing interactive analyses not available in other simulators. The user will leave with a much better understanding of how Julia can be leveraged in an environment to accelerate their workflows, whether performing analog simulations or other tasks.
Glen Hertz has spent 15 years as a field applications engineer supporting customers of commercial SPICE simulators. He joined Julia Computing as the Principal EDA Solutions Architect in 2021 to direct the JuliaSPICE product.
Software developer, electrical engineer, IC designer. Author of Apicula FPGA tools and Mosaic IC design software.