This manual describes the use of the Xyce Parallel Electronic Simulator. Xyce has been designed as a SPICE-compatible, high-performance analog circuit simulator, and has been written to support the simulation needs of the Sandia National Laboratories electrical designers. This development has focused on improving capability over the current state-of-the-art in the following areas: Capability to solve extremely large circuit problems by supporting large-scale parallel computing platforms (up to thousands of processors). This includes support for most popular parallel and serial computers. A differential-algebraic-equation (DAE) formulation, which better isolates the device model package from solver algorithms. This allows one to develop new types of analysis without requiring the implementation of analysis-specific device models. Device models that are specifically tailored to meet Sandias needs, including some radiationaware devices (for Sandia users only). Object-oriented code design and implementation using modern coding practices. Xyce is a parallel code in the most general sense of the phrase a message passing parallel implementation which allows it to run efficiently a wide range of computing platforms. These include serial, shared-memory and distributed-memory parallel platforms. Attention has been paid to the specific nature of circuit-simulation problems to ensure that optimal parallel efficiency is achieved as the number of processors grows.
This document is a reference guide to the Xyce Parallel Electronic Simulator, and is a companion document to the Xyce Users Guide [1] . The focus of this document is (to the extent possible) exhaustively list device parameters, solver options, parser options, and other usage details of Xyce. This document is not intended to be a tutorial. Users who are new to circuit simulation are better served by the Xyce Users Guide [1] .
This document is a reference guide to the Xyce Parallel Electronic Simulator, and is a companion document to the Xyce Users' Guide. The focus of this document is (to the extent possible) exhaustively list device parameters, solver options, parser options, and other usage details of Xyce. This document is not intended to be a tutorial. Users who are new to circuit simulation are better served by the Xyce Users' Guide.
Sandias parallel circuit simulator, Xyce, can address large scale neuron simulations in a new way extending the range within which one can perform high-fidelity, multi-compartment neuron simulations. This report documents the implementation of neuron devices in Xyce, their use in simulation and analysis of neuron systems.
Model order reduction (MOR) techniques have been used to facilitate the analysis of dynamical systems for many years. Although existing model reduction techniques are capable of providing huge speedups in the frequency domain analysis (i.e. AC response) of linear systems, such speedups are often not obtained when performing transient analysis on the systems, particularly when coupled with other circuit components. Reduced system size, which is the ostensible goal of MOR methods, is often insufficient to improve transient simulation speed on realistic circuit problems. It can be shown that making the correct reduced order model (ROM) implementation choices is crucial to the practical application of MOR methods. In this report we investigate methods for accelerating the simulation of circuits containing ROM blocks using the circuit simulator Xyce.
This document is a reference guide to the Xyce Parallel Electronic Simulator, and is a companion document to the Xyce Users Guide. The focus of this document is (to the extent possible) exhaustively list device parameters, solver options, parser options, and other usage details of Xyce. This document is not intended to be a tutorial. Users who are new to circuit simulation are better served by the Xyce Users Guide. The Xyce Parallel Electronic Simulator has been written to support, in a rigorous manner, the simulation needs of the Sandia National Laboratories electrical designers. It is targeted specifically to run on large-scale parallel computing platforms but also runs well on a variety of architectures including single processor workstations. It also aims to support a variety of devices and models specific to Sandia needs. This document is intended to complement the Xyce Users Guide. It contains comprehensive, detailed information about a number of topics pertinent to the usage of Xyce. Included in this document is a netlist reference for the input-file commands and elements supported within Xyce; a command line reference, which describes the available command line arguments for Xyce; and quick-references for users of other circuit codes, such as Orcad's PSpice and Sandia's ChileSPICE.
This manual describes the use of the Xyce Parallel Electronic Simulator. Xyce has been designed as a SPICE-compatible, high-performance analog circuit simulator, and has been written to support the simulation needs of the Sandia National Laboratories electrical designers. This development has focused on improving capability over the current state-of-the-art in the following areas: (1) Capability to solve extremely large circuit problems by supporting large-scale parallel computing platforms (up to thousands of processors). Note that this includes support for most popular parallel and serial computers; (2) Improved performance for all numerical kernels (e.g., time integrator, nonlinear and linear solvers) through state-of-the-art algorithms and novel techniques. (3) Device models which are specifically tailored to meet Sandia's needs, including some radiation-aware devices (for Sandia users only); and (4) Object-oriented code design and implementation using modern coding practices that ensure that the Xyce Parallel Electronic Simulator will be maintainable and extensible far into the future. Xyce is a parallel code in the most general sense of the phrase - a message passing parallel implementation - which allows it to run efficiently on the widest possible number of computing platforms. These include serial, shared-memory and distributed-memory parallel as well as heterogeneous platforms. Careful attention has been paid to the specific nature of circuit-simulation problems to ensure that optimal parallel efficiency is achieved as the number of processors grows. The development of Xyce provides a platform for computational research and development aimed specifically at the needs of the Laboratory. With Xyce, Sandia has an 'in-house' capability with which both new electrical (e.g., device model development) and algorithmic (e.g., faster time-integration methods, parallel solver algorithms) research and development can be performed. As a result, Xyce is a unique electrical simulation capability, designed to meet the unique needs of the laboratory.
While advances in manufacturing enable the fabrication of integrated circuits containing tens-to-hundreds of millions of devices, the time-sensitive modeling and simulation necessary to design these circuits poses a significant computational challenge. This is especially true for mixed-signal integrated circuits where detailed performance analyses are necessary for the individual analog/digital circuit components as well as the full system. When the integrated circuit has millions of devices, performing a full system simulation is practically infeasible using currently available Electrical Design Automation (EDA) tools. The principal reason for this is the time required for the nonlinear solver to compute the solutions of large linearized systems during the simulation of these circuits. The research presented in this report aims to address the computational difficulties introduced by these large linearized systems by using Model Order Reduction (MOR) to (i) generate specialized preconditioners that accelerate the computation of the linear system solution and (ii) reduce the overall dynamical system size. MOR techniques attempt to produce macromodels that capture the desired input-output behavior of larger dynamical systems and enable substantial speedups in simulation time. Several MOR techniques that have been developed under the LDRD on 'Solution Methods for Very Highly Integrated Circuits' will be presented in this report. Among those presented are techniques for linear time-invariant dynamical systems that either extend current approaches or improve the time-domain performance of the reduced model using novel error bounds and a new approach for linear time-varying dynamical systems that guarantees dimension reduction, which has not been proven before. Progress on preconditioning power grid systems using multi-grid techniques will be presented as well as a framework for delivering MOR techniques to the user community using Trilinos and the Xyce circuit simulator, both prominent world-class software tools.