ELECTRON ACTIVE DEVICES

MODELS FOR

SPICE
Prof. Drago Dobrescu

OUTLINE
1. INTRODUCTION
2. SPICE DC MODEL FOR DIODES
3. SPICE DC MODEL FOR BIPOLAR TRANSISTORS
4. SPICE AC MODEL FOR DIODES
5. SPICE AC MODEL FOR BIPOLAR TRANSISTORS
6. CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

What is SPICE?

Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis

The answer to the students first question:

Course Grading

LAB

min 10 - max 20 points

FINAL TEST

max 80 points

TOTAL

max 100 points

The test 8 questions with only one true answer 40 minutes

TEST Question Example

What is the meaning of SPICE for an electronics engineer?
a) A famos English girl group formed in 1994. They consisted
of Victoria Beckham (ne Adams), Emma Bunton, Melanie
Brown, Melanie Chisholm, and Geri Halliwell;
b) A dried seed, fruit, root, bark, leaf, or vegetative substance
used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food
additive for the purpose of flavour, colour, or as a
preservative that kills harmful bacteria or prevents their
growth;
c) The acronym for Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit
Emphasis, a program developed at Berkeley University in
the 8th decade of the 20th century;
d) All the three above are false.
CORRECT ANSWER: An electronics engineer has a
limited interst in music (SPICE girls) or foods (spices) and a
huge one in the study of electronic circuits, so
c is correct.

SPICE HISTORY
First Released in 1971 and announced in 1973 at the Sixteenth
Midwest Symposium on Circuit Theory
Rapidly adopted by universities and industry in the early 1970s
SPICE 2G6 became the de facto industry standard in the late 1970s
SPICE began as an innovative class project under the direction of Ron
Rohrer in the academic year 1969-1970
The computer at UC Berkeley at that time was a CDC 6400
The input to the computer was punched cards
The output of the computer was from the line printer
The MIPS rate was comparable to on Intel 286
The maximum available memory was 100,000 octal 60 bit words
daytime and 140,000 octal at night
The simulation program developed in Ron Rohrers classes was named
CANCER Computer Analysis of Nonlinear Circuits, Excluding Radiation

CANCER
Modified Newton-Raphson iteration with heuristics
that worked well with bipolar circuits
Implicit integration techniques to reduce problems
with the widely spread time constants of an IC
Use of Adjoint Circuit techniques to implement
Sensitivity Analysis, Noise Analysis, and Distortion
Analysis using Volterra Series
About 6000 lines of FORTRAN code
DC operating point analysis, small-signal AC
analysis and transient analysis in one package
Built-in models for diodes and bipolar transistors
CANCER was the first simulator to utilize sparse
matrix techniques
CANCER was never released, but was renamed
SPICE and released into the public domain in 1971

A sparse matrix obtained

when solving a finite
element problem in two
dimensions.
The non-zero elements are
shown in black

Why SPICE was successful ?

Public Domain
DC, AC, Transient, Noise, and Sensitivity Analyses in the same program
Built-in models for diodes, bipolar transistors, MOSFETs, and JFETs
Heavy use of SPICE by students led to many improvements in robustness
At the time, could handle fairly large circuits
Written in fairly portable FORTRAN

SPICE Limitations
According to student feedback, not very user friendly!
Limited error checking
DC Nonconvergence
No Transient Timestep Control
No dynamic memory allocation

SPICE 2
First released into the public domain in 1975
Contained all features of SPICE
Data structures totally revamped to incorporate dynamic memory allocation
Thorough upgrade of DC convergence and transient numerical integration
algorithms
About 8,000 lines of FORTRAN
Many industrial research centers adopted SPICE2 and developed proprietary
versions of the program, including Bell Labs (ADVICE), Texas Instruments
(TISPICE), Motorola (MCSPICE)
Shawn and Kim Hailey formed Meta Software and modified a copy of SPICE 2E
into the most successful version of a commercial SPICE known as HSPICE

SPICE 3
In 1989, SPICE3 was released into the public domain
This later version of SPICE3 was coded in the C language and utilized the more
sophisticated data structures of C
SPICE3 contains about 135,000 lines of C code

University Use of SPICE3

Adopted by many universities who welcomed SPICE3 both as a more robust
circuit simulator and as a computer program utilizing a modern language and its
more sophisticated data structures
Prompted many new research projects in circuit simulation, particularly more
computer-science oriented projects

Commercial Use of SPICE3

Microsim adapted a version of SPICE3 for the most popular of all SPICE
programs PSPICE
Many other companies utilized SPICE3 as a platform for additional alphabet
SPICE programs
Public Domain
Easy to add device models, which has become the defining point of circuit
simulators
Modern data structures and the C language made new enhancements easier for
researchers who didnt understand FORTRAN

MODELS
A model (from V.L. modellus) is a pattern, plan,
representation (especially in miniature), or description
designed to show the main object or workings of an object,
system, or concept.
In the electronic field, modelling represents the
caracterization of the semiconductor device electric
proprieties (or devices mathematicaly interconected), of the
equivalent circuits and the
tabels with the model
parameters.

MODELS CLASSIFICATION

COMPARING MODELS
Physical model
Static model = DC model
Empiric (Experimental) model
Example: DC model for the diode

Physical DC model for the semiconductor diode

The pn junction and the semiconductor diode
s p a c e c h a rg e re g io n

s p a2c e c h a r g e r e g i o n

d u

dx

E
p p0

V
+ +

n
+
+ + +
E
qN A
+ + +

( x + l p+0 ) +- l p0 x 0

+ + +

qN D (l x )
n0

0 x l n0

p, n

B0

-w cp

0
-q N A

+
+
+
+
+

ln0

w cn

E
-lp 0
0

jnM
j
2j n m 1
1

) B 0
p(M
qj p mN A N D

kT N A N D

ln
q
n i2

+
+
+
+
+

+qN D
-lp 0

n n0
p n 0 x 0
- l p0

qN A
2
(
x

l
)
p
0
n p 0 2
u
0
- l p 0 qN D (l l xn 0) 2 0 xx l
n0
n0
B 0
2
N A l p0 N D l n0
p
n
l 0 l n0 l p0

+
+
+ E
+
+
v

ln0
x

- E m ax = -q N A lp 0 = -q N D ln 0
u
-lp 0
0

ln0

B0
x

The biased pn junction

qN A
(x l p ) - l p x 0

qN D

(l n x)
0 x ln

B B 0 VA

l ln lp

2 1
1
(

) B
q NA ND

qN A
2
(
x

l
)
- lp x 0
p
2
u
V qN D (l x) 2
0 x ln
A
n
B 0
2

Currents in the biased pn junction

I A I diff I gr

I 0d

I A I 0d [exp(

the saturation diffusion current

qVA
qV
) 1] I 0gr [exp( A ) 1]
kT
2kT
I 0d

I 0gr the saturation generation-recombination current:

forward biasing
reverse biasing

qV
I A I diff I 0d exp( A )
kT
I A I R I 0gr

Dp

Dn
)
Lp N D Ln N A
n
I 0gr qA jl i
2 0

qA jn i2 (

Empiric (Experimental) DC model for the semiconductor diode

I A I 0 [exp(

qVA
) 1]
mkT

Parameters: I0, m
Saturation Current
Ideality Factor

Large forward bias

n

lo g IF
V J R S IF

IF

R Sp

R Sn
V J
+

V F

VF

mkT I F
ln
R s I F
q
I0

V F

lo g I0
0

Parameters: I0, m, RS

Series resistance

Series resistance calculation: 3 points method

Large forward bias + 3 measure pairs (VF, IF)
VF 1

mkT I F 1
ln
R s I F1
q
I0

VF 2

mkT I F 2
ln
RsIF 2
q
I0

VF 3

mkT I F 3
ln
Rs IF 3
q
I0

IDEA: geometric progression

I F2 2 I F 1 I F 3

Linear combination: (eq1)+(eq3)-2(eq2)

mkT I F 1 I F 3
VF 1 2VF 2 VF 3
ln 2 R s ( I F 1 2 I F 2 I F 3 )
q
IF2

VF 1 2VF 2 VF 3
Rs
I F1 2I F 2 I F 3