SPICE
PLECS Spice is a separately licensed feature available only for PLECS Standalone. PLECS is already equipped with a schematic editor, its popular scope, and a user-friendly user interface. The ingredients included in the SPICE bundle that turns the standard PLECS software into a fully-featured SPICE analysis tool are:
Modified Nodal Analysis
The set of equations solved in a SPICE simulation is obtained using MNA, which produces differential algebraic equations (DAE) that include Kirchhoff’s current law (KCL) explicitly as algebraic constraint.
Mixed-Signal Solver
Differential algebraic solvers capable of simulating state-space and MNA models together.
Netlist Parser
SPICE models are often distributed as netlists. A netlist is a text-based description of a circuit. The netlist component in PLECS Spice supports various dialects to enable the import of netlists from varied sources.
Compact Models
Netlists provided by manufacturers as accurate models of real devices often rely on parametrization of built-in, well-established, semiconductor device models. These compact models are highly optimized for SPICE simulation.
The strength of the standard PLECS software lies in its judicious use of ideal switches: by avoiding the computational burden of simulating the switching transients of detailed semiconductor models, it delivers exceptional speed and robustness for system-level integration. But although ideal switch models are sufficient and well-suited for system-level analysis, simulating detailed switching dynamics is valuable for informing semiconductor selection and validating component choices before procurement. To meet this need, Plexim offers PLECS Spice, a bundle of circuit simulation tools for the analysis of systems involving detailed component models described by SPICE netlists. The feature enables users to analyze parasitic effects and detailed device-level behavior without leaving the PLECS development environment.
PLECS Spice introduces the Netlist component, which allows to import and connect SPICE netlists to other components in a schematic. The import tool makes it easy to integrate semiconductor SPICE models provided by manufacturers to your converter designs. Since the solvers included in PLECS Spice are capable of simulating schematics containing both PLECS and SPICE components, the controls for this converter can be created using the PLECS control domain. With the capabilities of both modeling approaches unified in one platform, users no longer need to build the same model twice.