Abstract
A simulation system with low-level subcircuit simulators coexisting in the system level is proposed. In the top-down VLSI design strategy, a system-level simulation is indispensable not only to determine the system structure, but also to test the detailed design of a subcircuit in the whole system since the detailed design of an analog block is not exactly the same with its behavioral specification. Therefore, a system level simulator, where detailed design simulators, such as SPICE, coexist and synchronize together, is strongly desired. The proposed simulation system is designed based on the object-oriented scheme so that a new simulation algorithm or a signal conversion model can be easily introduced. Also an acceleration algorithm for Gauss-Seidel iterations is proposed to reduce the simulation time.
