Book: Analog Design and Simulation using

OrCAD Capture and PSpice

Brian Bailey - March 19, 2013

I know the readers of the EDA Designline like book reviews and excerpts and I have recently
finished doing one over on EDN that I think you may be interested in. The book is “Analog Design
and Simulation using OrCAD Capture and PSpice” written by Dennis Fitzpatrick. While the complete
review can be read here, I will provide the main points in this blog.

In the EDA sector, there are a lot of books about research and new techniques, or how to learn and
use new languages, but there are not many how-to, practical books that enable you to come up to
speed with a tool. We tend to rely on the tool vendor and their user guides or tutorials, but often
these are not the most helpful of texts as they are not written by real users who have struggled with
learning it from scratch and as such often assume a lot of knowledge that isn’t there or go to the
trivial end and almost teach you how to use a graphical interface.

So, who is Dennis Fitzpatrick? Well, first he is a Brit, and when you hear a British accent, you know
he should be believed at all times – except you can’t get the accent from the book. Well, Dennis has
also worked in the electronics industry for over 15 years with experience of analogue (yup that is a
British accent right there) and digital IC design. He gained experience using the Cadence EDA
software tools and ultimately ended up working for OrCAD and then Cadence as a Senior Lead
Engineer specializing in the IC and board level analog, digital simulation and Signal Integrity tools
before becoming an expert in PSpice. Dennis worked at Cadence for eight years providing support
and delivering Cadence EDA software training courses. He joined the University of West London in
2007 as a senior lecturer teaching a wide range of electronic engineering subjects and now is a
Reader in the University’s Institute for Practice, Interdisciplinary Research and Enterprise
(INPSIRE) conducting Biomedical research and heads the Biomedical engineering and DSP research
group.

Three chapters were provided. Chapter 5 talks about parametric sweep. Similar to chapter 3, this
chapter looks at varying parameters of the design for AC analysis and is performed by varying a
parameter in the design. This chapter is very heavy on the practical exercises. Chapter 7 is where
you really start to learn about PSpice simulation and the notion of the timestep. Several exercises
help you to understand the basics and how to create files with discrete time and voltage data.
Finally, Chapter 10 is on the subject of Monte Carlo analysis. PSpice simulation, while a very
efficient simulator for what it does, can take a long time for complex designs or for those that
contain many variables that could be varied as part of the simulation process. Instead of simulating
all of them, a statistical process is usually used called Monte Carlo analysis.

● Chapter 1 Getting Started

● Chapter 2 DC Bias Point Analysis
● Chapter 3 DC Analysis
● Chapter 4 AC Analysis
● Chapter 5 Parametric Sweep
● Chapter 6 Stimulus Editor
● Chapter 7 Transient Analysis
● Chapter 8 Convergence Problems and Error Messages
● Chapter 9 Transformers
● Chapter 10 Monte Carlo Analysis
● Chapter 11 Worst Case Analysis
● Chapter 12 Performance Analysis
● Chapter 13 Analog Behavioral Models
● Chapter 14 Noise Analysis
● Chapter 15 Temperature Analysis
● Chapter 16 Adding and Creating PSpice Models
● Chapter 17 Transmission Lines
● Chapter 18 Digital Simulation
● Chapter 19 Mixed Simulation
● Chapter 20 Creating Hierarchical Designs
● Chapter 21 Magnetic Parts Editor
● Chapter 22 Test Benches

This is a great introduction to a complex subject and is very reasonably priced at $69.95 or
cheaper from either the Elsevier store or from places such as Amazon. I highly
recommend it for anyone looking at this subject for the first time.

Brian Bailey – keeping you covered

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