SPICE variations

SPICE (simulation program with integrated circuits emphasis) is a powerful computer software program used for rapid simulation and analysis of circuits. It is now an industry standard. Many EDA (electronic design automation) companies offer variations of the basic SPICE -- in most of the cases they are not free. Most of these variations are equipped with a GUI (graphical user interface). There are also SPICE variations which are free. The table below surveys some of the most popular SPICE variations. In this course you'll use LTSpice, which is available in the computer-cluster room. Because it is free, you may want to download and install it on your personal computer if you want to use it at home.
 

No.	SPICE variation	Pluses	Minuses
1	Old version of PSpice 9.1 http://www.electronics-lab.com/downloads/schematic/013/	Small size Still available	Student version: works for up to 20 nodes?
2	OrCad Demo (from Cadence bought: OrCad bought: MicroSim developed PSpice) https://www.cadence.com/products/orcad/Pages/downloads.aspx	OrCad PCB design tools. One of the most popular. Affordable for academia	Free only the demo version: allows simulation of circuits of up to 20 nodes? Takes 2G
3	Virtuoso Spectre (from Cadence) http://www.cadence.com/products/cic/spectre_circuit/pages/default.aspx	Spice-level simulation for analog, radio frequency (RF) and mixed-signal circuits
4	HSpice (from Synopsys) http://www.synopsys.com/Tools/Verification/AMSVerification/CircuitSimulation/HSPICE/Pages/default.aspx
5	Multisim (from National Instruments) (formerly from Electronics Workbench) http://www.ni.com/academic/multisimse.htm http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6030#textbooks	Student version. Plenty of edu materials
6	T Spice (from Tanner) http://www.tanner.com/EDA/product/TSpice_CurcuitSim.html	Academic discounts	No student version
7	LT Spice IV (from Linear Technology) http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/index.jsp	Free, Windows No registration required: you can simply download it!
8	NGSpice part of gEDA tools http://www.gpleda.org/tools/index.html	Free, Linux
9	Berkeley Spice http://embedded.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/downloads/spice/index.htm	Free