00 - Before You Begin
Welcome
OrCAD products offer a total solution for your core design tasks: schematic- and VHDL-based design entry; FPGA and CPLD design synthesis; digital, analog, and mixed-signal simulation; and printed circuit board layout. What's more, OrCAD products are a suite of applications built around an engineer's design flow—not just a collection of independently developed point tools. PSpice A/D is just one element in our total solution design flow.
PSpice A/D is a simulation program that models the behavior of a circuit. PSpice A/D simulates analog-only circuits, whereas PSpice A/D simulates any mix of analog and digital devices. Used with OrCAD Capture, you can think of PSpice A/D as a software-based breadboard of your circuit that you can use to test and refine your design before manufacturing the physical circuit board or IC.
PSpice analog and digital algorithms are built into the same program so that mixed analog/digital circuits can be simulated with tightly-coupled feedback loops between the analog and digital sections without any performance degradation.
After you prepare a design for simulation, OrCAD Capture generates a circuit file set. The circuit file set, containing the circuit netlist and analysis commands, is read by PSpice for simulation. PSpice A/D formulates these into meaningful graphical plots, which you can mark for display directly from your schematic page using markers.
Comparison of PSpice A/D Tiers
The following table identifies the significant features that are included with various tiers of PSpice A/D.
How to use this guide
This guide is designed so you can quickly find the information you need to use PSpice A/D. To help you learn and use PSpice A/D efficiently, this manual is separated into the following sections:
- Part 1 - Simulation primer
- Part 2 - Design entry
- Part 3 - Setting up and running analyses
- Part 4 - Viewing results
Symbols and conventions
Our online documentation uses a few special symbols and conventions.
| Notation | Examples | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Ctrl+R |
Press Ctrl+R |
Means to hold down the Control key while pressing R. |
|
Alt, F, O |
From the File menu, choose Open (Alt, F, O). |
Means that you have two options. You can use the mouse to choose the Open command from the File menu, or you can press each of the keys in parentheses in order: first Alt, then F, then O. |
|
Monospace font |
In the Part Name text box, type PARAM. |
Text that you type is shown in monospace font. In the example, you type the characters P, A, R, A, and M. |
|
UPPERCASE |
In Capture, open CLIPPERA.DSN. In Project Manager, open CLIPPERA.CPM |
Path and filenames are shown in uppercase. In the example, you open the design file named CLIPPER.DSN. |
|
Italics |
In the text editor, save stimulus_name.STM. |
Information that you are to provide is shown in italics. In the example, you save the design with a name of your choice, but it must have an extension of .DSN. |
Related documentation
In addition to this guide, you can find technical product information in the online help, online books, and our technical web site, as well as in other books. The table below describes the types of technical documentation provided with PSpice A/D.
| This documentation component . . . | Provides this . . . |
|---|---|
|
This guide— PSpice A/D User Guide |
An online, searchable, comprehensive guide for understanding and using the features available in PSpice A/D. |
|
PSpice A/D Online help |
Comprehensive information for understanding and using the features available in PSpice A/D. You can access help from the Help menu in PSpice A/D, by choosing the Help button in a dialog box, or by pressing F1. Topics include:
You can get context-sensitive help for a error message by placing your cursor in the error message line in the session log and pressing F1. |
|
PSpice Advanced Analysis User Guide |
An online, searchable, comprehensive guide for understanding and using the features available in the PSpice Advanced Analysis add on program. PSpice Advanced Analysis is an add-on option to PSpice A/D. PSpice Advanced Analysis allows PSpice A/D users to optimize performance and improve quality of designs before committing them to hardware. Advanced Analysis’ four important capabilities: sensitivity analysis, optimization, yield analysis (Monte Carlo), and stress analysis (Smoke) address design complexity as well as price, performance, and quality requirements of circuit design. |
|
PSpice A/D Reference Guide |
An online, searchable reference guide for PSpice A/D describing: detailed descriptions of the simulation controls and analysis specifications, start-up option definitions, and a list of device types in the analog and digital model libraries. User interface commands are provided to instruct you on each of the screen commands. |
|
PSpice A/D Quick Reference |
Concise descriptions of the commands, shortcuts, and tools available in PSpice A/D. |
|
OrCAD Capture User Guide |
Comprehensive information for understanding and using the features available in the OrCAD Capture schematic editor. |
|
Design Entry HDL User Guide |
Comprehensive information for understanding and using the features available in the Design Entry HDL schematic editor. |
|
Product Installation Guide for Windows |
Refer to this guide for information on hardware and software requirements for running PSpice A/D. |
Accessing online documentation
To access online documentation, you must open the Cadence Documentation window.
- Do one of the following:
- From the Windows Start menu, choose Cadence Help (Product version) -> Cadence Doc Assistant (Product version)
- From the Help menu in PSpice A/D, choose Documentation.
- From the Library pane, click the PSpice category to show the documents in the category.
- Double-click a document title to load that document.
PSpice A/D Samples and Tutorials
Many samples, templates, demos, and tutorials are available with PSpice A/D that you can use to work with the tools. The samples and tutorials are available for the design entry tools, Design Entry HDL and OrCAD Capture. PSpice Simulink Co-Simulation demos are also available for both the design entry tools.
The Design Entry HDL design samples are available at <installation_directory>\tools\pspice\concept_samples. This location contains the CoSimulationDemos folder and design templates in the design_examples folder. The tutorials are located at <installation_directory>\tools\pspice\tutorial\concept.
Similarly, the Capture design samples are available at <installation_directory>\tools\pspice\capture_samples. This location contains the CoSimulationDemos folder. The design templates are in the <installation_directory>\tools\capture\templates\pspice folder. The tutorials are located at <installation_directory>\tools\pspice\tutorial\capture.
View the next document: 01 - Things You Need To Know (Part 1)
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