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.