LSI COSIMULATION IN EDA FOR PCB DESIGN

Abstract

Virtual prototyping is performed during product development to validate a design using a computer model before making a physical prototype. For this purpose, EDA for printed circuit board (PCB) design contain SPICE circuit simulator. Typically, modern PCB assemblies include one or more large-scale integrated circuits (LSI). The LSI functionality is complemented by auxiliary integrated circuits (IC) and discrete components. In most cases, the required efficiency is achieved by using LSIs that include processor cores. Therefore circuit simulators must provide a hardware/software co-simulation. System-level LSI models are acceptable in terms of computational resource costs. Major advances in system-level simulation, including co-simulation, come from the development of LSIs themselves. In PCB design, LSIs are fully fabricated components. This specificity must be taken into account when implementing tools for PCB design verifying. System-level LSI models must be integrated into the overall assembly circuit model. LSI models must provide the required accuracy only at the external pins. Models of digital LSIs must accurately reproduce delays between level changes at the pins and diagnose timing violations. EDA for PCB design users must develop LSI models tailored to the project specifics. The purpose of the research is to find solutions for building models of LSIs, containing processor cores, for prototyping circuits using OrCAD PCB Designer with PSpice. The article discusses the task of building a C/C++ model for the dsPIC33 microcontroller that performs signal processing in real time. An example of building a C/C++ model using the PSpice Model Editor tools and modeling results are given.