SpectreMDL and Ocean do seem to serve the same basic purpose, but they are not equivalent. Ocean is a library of functions that are used for controlling a simulator and gaining access to the simulation results from Skill. It is simulator neutral, meaning that it will work with any circuit simulator integrated into Artist. As such, it has a rather distant connection to Spectre. It sets up the simulation, runs Spectre and waits for the simulation to complete, and then digs through the results files. SpectreMDL on the other hand is a language that is integrated into Spectre. As such, the calculations are performed in real time in the simulator. As such, it tends to be much faster and get much more accurate results. It is faster not only because it can efficiently control the simulator, but also because it can terminate the simulation once all the measurement results are known. It is more accurate because it can control the simulator (timepoint placement and such) to accurately resolve the waveform at the measurement points.

So in general, you are much better off using SpectreMDL if you can. However, SpectreMDL is still relatively limited. It was designed largely for digital cell characterization.

-Ken

Dear all,


can you actually combine SpectreMDL with PSS and extract e.g. the phase noise of a signal @1MHz offset for example?

I think SpectreMDL is limited in this respect, but I could be wrong: I just went through its basic functions and from what I make of it, this seems impossible...

Kind Regards

Peter