HARMONIC BALANCE PROGRAM

A Frequency-Domain Simulator for Nonlinear Circuits (formerly Harmonica and Spectre)

The Harmonic Balance Program for High Frequency Nonlinear ICs is a frequency-domain-based nonlinear circuit simulator that can find the large-signal, steady-state response of a nonautonomous nonlinear circuit. When used on circuits behaving only mildly nonlinearly with few harmonics, the Harmonic Balance Program can be significantly more efficient and accurate than traditional time-domain simulators, particularly if the circuit is high-Q or narrowband, has slowly responding bias networks, or contains distributed components.

Besides finding the large-signal periodic and quasi-periodic steady-state response of a circuit, the Harmonic Balance Program can also find its DC operating point and perform a small-signal analysis: calculating voltages, currents, and S-parameters. Because the Harmonic Balance Program operates exclusively in the frequency domain, it can use much more accurate and flexible distributed device models (including such effects as loss and dispersion) than traditional time-domain simulators. It can also read and write S-parameter data files. The Harmonic Balance Program currently supports resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, voltage sources, current sources, ports, voltage-controlled voltage sources, voltage-controlled current sources, transmission lines (lossless and lossy), microstrip lines, linear N-ports that take their characteristics from S-parameter data files, diodes, BJTs, JFETs, GaAsFETs, and polynomial voltage-controlled current sources.

The Harmonic Balance Program was originally known as Harmonica in the 1985 ICCAD and 1987 MTT conferences and in articles in the October 1986 IEEE Transactions on CAD and the February 1988 Transactions on MTT. The Program was later referred to as Spectre but that name has been changed because Spectre is a trademark owned by Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Documentation Included with the Program:

1. User's Guide. Available separately for $5.00
2. Installation Notes.
3. W. Christopher, HB: A Short Introduction to Nutmeg, March 1986. Available separately for $2.50
4. HB Nutmeg Programmer's Guide. Available separately for $5.00
5. A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, K. Kundert, and J. White, Steady-State Methods for the Simulation of Analog and Microwave Circuits, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990 (hardcover book). Available separately for $83.00

Support: No formal support. The authors would, however, like to be notified of any problems or errors in the material provided, and they appreciate copies of any troublesome circuits. If the programs are converted to run on other systems, they would like to receive copies of the modified programs so that these versions can be made available to the public.

Foreign Distribution: Yes