SLiCAP: more than SYMBOLIC SPICE

What it is

• SLiCAP is an acronym for: S ymbolic Li near C ircuit A nalysis P rogram
• SliCAP is a tool for algorithm-based analog design automation
• SLiCAP is intended for setting up and solving design equations of electronic circuits
• SLiCAP is a an open source application written in Python and maxima CAS
• SLiCAP is part of the tool set for teaching Structured Electronics Design at the Delft University of Technology

Why you should use it

• SLiCAP facilitates analog design automation
• SLiCAP speeds up the circuit engineering process
• SLiCAP makes complex symbolic math doable
• SLiCAP integrates documentation and design
• SLiCAP facilitates design education and knowledge building

Features

• Accepts SPICE-like netlists as input
• Concurrent design and documentation
• Supports and facilitates structured analog design

Capabilities

• Conversion of hierarchically structured SPICE netlist into a mixed symbolic/numeric matrix equation
• Symbolic and numeric noise analysis
• Symbolic and numeric noise integration over frequency
• Symbolic and numeric determination of transfer functions and polynomial coefficients of transfer functions
• Symbolic and numeric inverse Laplace Transform
• Symbolic and numeric determination of network solutions
• Accurate numeric pole-zero analysis. Symbolic pole-zero analysis for relatively simple networks
• Root-locus analysis with an arbitrarily selected circuit parameter as root locus variable
• Symbolic and numeric DC and DC variance analysis for determination of budgets for resistor tolerances, offset, and bias quantities
• Symbolic and numeric derivation and solution of design equations for bandwidh, frequency response, noise performance, dc variance, and temperature stability

Technology

• Python, Maxima CAS, HTML, CSS, LaTeX, MathJax, Jupyter Lab

Setting up SLiCAP

To set up SLiCAP, the following components are required:

• A Python 3 install - Dependencies of packages is found in requirements.txt
• Maxima CAS (MSWindows: install maxima on the system drive)
• SLiCAP can generate netlists from schematics made with:
  • LTspice (MSWindows: install LTspice on the system drive)
  • gschem (MSWindows: install gschem and its netlister on the system drive)
  • lepton-eda

The dependencies are listed in the 'requirements.txt' file.

1. Download or clone the SLiCAP archive from github
2. Extract it in some directory
3. Open a terminal or an Anaconda terminal if you run python from Anaconda in the directory with setup.py
4. Enter: 'python setup.py install --user

Project file locations

Do not place project files in the directory where SLiCAP installs the libraries, the examples, and the documentation.

This location defaults to: /home/yourUserName/SLiCAP/ (LINUX) or \users\yourUserName\SLiCAP\ (WINDOWS).

The contents of this directory will be overwritten if you re-install or update SLiCAP.

First Run

To verify setting up of SLiCAP has been done correctly, it is possible to run one of the example projects that are in the examples/ directory.

Documentation

By default, the documentation is placed in /home/yourUserName/SLiCAP/docs/ (LINUX) or \users\yourUserName\SLiCAP\docs\ (WINDOWS). Execution of the SLiCAP command 'Help()' shows the HTML documentation in your dfefault browser.

Contributing

This github page is to be used for contributing to SLiCAP.

Adding features

Features should be added through pull requests and pass all checks that have been set up on the github page. These tests include:

• Functional python tests
• Style tests verified using a linter

Bugs

In case bugs are found, please report them to the 'Issues' page where we can resolve the issues and keep track of any possible bugs.