HSPICE: Getting-started tutorial - I
This document provides a basic HSPICE tutorial to help you get started on HSPICE. Please note that it is not intended to serve as a complete HSPICE reference. For more details, please refer to the HSPICE manual.
This tutorial contains the steps that you need to follow in order to simulate an inverter using
HSPICE and to find its delay, dynamic power and static power.
Steps to get started: 1. Using your username and password, logon to a Windows machine that contains
HSPICE.
2. Once logged in, create a new folder. All your simulation-related files should reside in this folder. Once inside the folder, open a text editor (Wordpad is preferable) and create a file called filename. Save it as filename.sp (for example, inverter_delay.sp). (Choose the ‘Save As’ option; change the .txt extension to .sp and then select the ‘All files’ option in the field below that before saving).
3. An HSPICE program is commonly known as an HSPICE deck. Two decks are provided with this tutorial (after this section). The first deck is for simulating an inverter and for determining its delay and dynamic power. The second deck can be used to measure the static current (leakage current) in an inverter.
4. Type your HSPICE deck into filename.sp (the file created in step 2) and save the filename.sp file
5. Please note that the first line of an HSPICE deck is treated as a comment.
6. Please make sure that any file that you want to include along with your HSPICE deck for simulation resides within the same folder (directory) as the HSPICE deck.
7. Compile the deck using the HSPICE Windows GUI (Graphical User Interface).
8. The results of the compilation will be recorded in the filename.lis file. If you get the
‘hspice job aborted’ message in the .lis file, it means that there are errors in the deck. If so, fix the errors and retry step 7.
9. To view the output in text format, open the file filename.lis. This will open the .lis file, which contains the simulation details in text format.
10. In order to view the results graphically, open the Cosmoscope (Cscope) tool. Once
Cscope opens, do FileOpenPlotfiles…Then, locate the folder where your simulation files are stored and double-click on the relevant filename.tr* files (for example, filename.tr0). Then open the waveforms you are interested in. Voltage waveforms will have a ‘v’ prefix, for example, v(in) and current waveforms will have a
‘i’ prefix, for example, i(vin)
The following section contains two HSPICE decks.
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* Deck 1: HSPICE Deck to find delay and average dynamic power for an inverter (Comment)
* Anything following * is ignored (‘*’ denotes a comment)
* First line is always reserved for title/comments, even if there is no * at the beginning
.include '180nm_bsim3.txt'
* The ‘.include’ line above is used to include the technology model for the transistors
* being used in this HSPICE program. The model file should be saved in the same
* directory as the HSPICE deck
* The model filename is given by you. The filename for the model file should reflect the
* manufacturing technology for which the transistors are modeled (Here it is 180 nm)
* The contents of the model file are to be obtained from the Predictive Technology
* Model (PTM) Website, Arizona State University. It is available at the following
* address:
* http://www.eas.asu.edu/~ptm
.tran 1p 60ns
* The ‘.tran’ statement specifies a transient analysis. 1p indicates that operating point
*calculations are performed at one picosecond intervals. 60ns is the total simulation time
.options post
* Use the .options command to be able to see the output
.temp 100
* Specifies the junction operating temperature vSupply Vdd 0 1.8v vGround Vss 0 0v
* The above two statements specify the Power supply and Ground respectively.
* Supply voltage value used here is 1.8V (nominal supply voltage for 180 nm technology
*Netlist begins
*Order of specifying is as follows:* Trnstr Drain Gate Source
Substrate

Type

Width

M1 op in
Vdd
Vdd
PMOS
W=830n
M2
op in Vss
Vss
NMOS
W=360n
*The following circuit, consisting of transistors M3 and M4, forms the load
M3
2 op Vdd
Vdd
PMOS
W=0.36u
M4
2
op
Vss
Vss
NMOS
W=0.36u

Length
L=180n
L=180n
L=0.18u
L=0.18u

* end of netlist or component specification (not the end of HSPICE program)

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*Following is the input pulse specification
Vin in Vss pulse (0 1.8 0.49ns 0.01ns 0.01ns 0.49ns 1ns)
*The second (in) and third (Vss) labels indicate that v(in) is applied between the
*nodes ‘in’ and ‘Vss’
*Order of the pulse parameters is as follows:
*LOW voltage val., HIGH voltage val., OFF time, Rise-time, Fall-time, ON-time, Period
*Here, total period is 1ns. Rise time = Fall time =0.01ns. OFF time = ON time =0.49ns
*Note that Vin swings from 0V (=Vss= strong logic ‘0’) to 1.8V (=Vdd= strong logic ‘1’)
*uncomment the following two lines if you want to see the input and output voltage
*values after every interval specified in the ‘.tran’ statement written earlier.
*.print TRAN V(in)
*.print TRAN V(op)
*Delay measurement
.measure TRAN tdelay1 TRIG v(in) val=0.9 fall=5 td=0n TARG v(op) val=0.9 rise=5
.measure TRAN tdelay2 TRIG v(in) val=0.9 rise=5 td=0n TARG v(op) val=0.9 fall=5
*‘fall=5’ and ‘rise =5’ specify the 5th rising and falling edges respectively. The first
*‘val=0.9’ implies that the measurement should start when the input voltage reaches a
*value of 0.9V (half-way between Vdd and Vss). The second ‘val=0.9’ means
*measurement should stop when the output voltage reaches a value of 0.9V
* The following two lines print the delay values
.print tdelay1
.print tdelay2
* The following ‘.measure’ is used to measure dynamic power (average power during the
* period when switching activity happens)
.measure dynpower avg power from 0n to 10n
*dynpower is the variable name chosen by the user
* The following command is used to print the value dynamic power
.print dynpower
* All HSPICE decks end with the ‘.end’ statement
.end

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* Deck 2: HSPICE Deck to find static (leakage) current in an inverter
.include '180nm_bsim3.txt'
* The above line includes the model file
* Model source: Arizona State University. Available at http://www.eas.asu.edu/~ptm
*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------* Control statements follow
.tran 1p 60ns
.options post
.temp 100
*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------* Sources
* To name Vdd and Vss using numbers, use numbers 1 and 0 respectively as they are
*reserved by HSPICE for Vdd and Ground respectively
* The names Vdd and Vss here are local names assigned to nodes Supply and Ground
*respectively
* The suffix v before Supply and and Ground is necessary to indicate that they are voltages vSupply Vdd 0 1.8V vGround Vss 0 0V
*Trnstr Drain Gate

Source

M1
M2

Type

Width

Vdd
Vss

PMOS
NMOS

W=830n
W=360n

L=180n
L=180n

*The following circuit, consisting of transistors M3 and M4, forms the load
M3
2 op Vdd
Vdd
PMOS
W=360n
M4
2
op
Vss
Vss
NMOS
W=360n

L=180n
L=180n

op op in in Substrate
Vdd
Vss

Length

Vin in Vss pulse (1.8 1.8 0.49ns 0.01ns 0.01ns 0.49ns 1ns)
*Vin in Vss pulse (0 0 0.49ns 0.01ns 0.01ns 0.49ns 1ns)
* Alternately uncomment one of the above two lines
* In the two lines above, note how the first two values in the parentheses of the pulse
* command are either 1.8 and 1.8 (which means that the input of the inverter is static at
* logic ‘1’ = 1.8V) or 0 and 0 (which means that the input of the inverter is static at logic
* ‘0’)
* The following line measures the leakage current (rms value) between the 50th and 51st ns
.measure tran leakage_current rms I(vSupply) FROM=50n TO=51n
*Static power: Multiply measured value of ‘leakage_current’ variable with supply
*voltage to obtain static power
.print leakage_current
.end
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