Q: I often use the temporary reference point, but I would like to see both absolute coordinates and relative coordinates, without toggling the reference point on and off.

Guardian is a (state-of-the-art) hierarchical netlist comparison system, which eliminates many of the disadvantages of existing programs. Running on PCs under Windows NT, it easily compares circuits with a large number of devices. The advanced algorithms implemented in Guardian allow a substantial reduction of execution time and also detect discrepancies between two netlists more precisely. Guardian generates a comprehensive hierarchical report, which is easy to read. An embedded tool, called the Spice Netlist Rover, links report files with source netlists to make inspecting correct matches and errors simple.

A new diffusion algorithm based on a Galerkin method with linear finite elements, an extremely fast sparse matrix solver, and object oriented physical modeling is one of the new features implemented in ATHENA version 5.0. This module is an alternative to the existing code, thus providing the user with a choice between using the old diffusion module and the new algorithms.

Several enhancements have been made to the TFT models in SmartSpice. New parameters have been added to improve accuracy and allow simular sophisticated modeling options to MOS.

General purpose dichotomic search method is often requested by designers when they want to find a specific element (voltage, current, parameter value …) in an already sorted set. For example, a typical problem that makes extensive use of this kind of algorithm is the computation of setup and hold time for cell characterization. This problem was already discussed in two articles [1] and [2] and a solution was proposed with the use of the SmartSpice Script Language and .MODIF statement.