LABORATORY EXPERIMENT 1

LTSPICE FAMILIARIZATION

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

To learn the basics of the LTSPICE schematic editor/capture

To learn the different SPICE simulation analyses.

To understand the characteristics of a CS passive load amplifier.

To understand the characteristics of a current mirror/steering circuit.

To understand the characteristics of a differential amplifier.

BASIC CONCEPTS:
SPICE (Simulation Program for Integrated Circuit Engineering) is a general-
purpose circuit simulation program for non-linear DC, non-linear transient, and linear AC
analysis. Circuits may contain resistors, capacitors, inductors, mutual inductors,
independent voltage and current sources, four types of dependent sources, transmission
lines, switches, and several semiconductor devices: including diodes, BJTs, JFETs,
MESFETs, and MOSFETs. Circuits with large numbers of all types of components can be
simulated. You can think of SPICE as a nodal network solver that outputs all the node
voltages and branch currents. One node must be named 0 (the ground node) and is the
reference node for all the node voltages.
SPICE input files are simple text files (e.g. name.txt). Input files include a TITLE,
circuit description NET LIST, analysis directives (COMMANDS), and lists of other text
files to include (INC) such as model libraries (LIB) and an .END command.
LTSPICE is a free SPICE simulator with schematic capture from Linear
Technology. It is quite similar to PSPICE Lite but is not limited in the number of devices
or nodes. Linear Technology (LT) is one of the industry leaders in analog and digital
integrated circuits. They also provide a complete set of SPICE models for LT components.
The input file for SPICE is generated automatically from the schematic capture
software. In the old days, the input file was created by hand as a simple text file. SPICE
can still run using a simple text file as the input but today most users prefer to use
schematic capture software to create the input file.

EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS:

Installed LTSPICE Software

LTSPICE Models /Components

Resistor: res

Capacitor: cap

Monolithic MOSFET: nmos4, pmos4

Independent Current Source: current

Independent Voltage Source: voltage

PROCEDURES:
I. Drawing the CS passive load circuit and naming the devices.
1. Open LTSPICE software.
2. Create new schematic file
3. Name the file as: CS_PassiveLoad
4. Click the component icon from the schematic editor window (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The component icon

Figure 1. The component icon

5. A pop-up window will appear with as seen on Figure 2. This window is a list of
symbols and elements. From the list, select the elements needed and connect
them to a common source configuration as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 2. List of components and symbols

Figure 3. Common source configuration

6. Name the elements by pointing at the specific element to be renamed and

simultaneously press the Ctrl key and right click the mouse. A pop-up window
will appear and edit the default InstName to a desired name. For instance in
Figure 3, change the name V2 to VDD (see Figure 4)
 Figure 4. Changing the element name

7. Do the same to the other elements. Rename the resistor, capacitor, and input
voltage source to Rload, Cload, and Vin respectively. See Figure 5.

Figure 5. Elements renamed

8. To designate the parameter value of the elements, point the cursor of the
mouse then right-click. Rename the values of VDD, Cload, Rload to 15 Volts, 10
pico-farad, and 10.95 kilo-ohm respectively. For Vin; point to the element, right
click the select Advanced from the pop-up menu. Select SINE, and fill its
characteristics with a DC offset of 7.99201 Volts, 100millivolts amplitude and a
frequency of 10Khz. (See Figure 6).
 Figure 6. Values introduced to the elements

9. Label the nodes by pointing at the wire and right click the mouse. A pop-up
window menu will appear as seen on Figure 7. Name the nodes drain, gate and
source as Vout, g, and s respectively (see Figure 8).

Figure 7. Naming the nodes/net

 Figure 8. Nodes with name

II. Simulating the circuit

1. Open the Edit Simulation Cmd from the Simulate pull-down menu as shown
in Figure 9. The simulation control panel will pop up (see Figure 10).

Figure 9. To open simulation control panel

Figure 10. The simulation control panel

A) DC Operating Point
1. Select the DC op pnt, select ok and click to the schematic editor window
as seen on Figure 11.

Figure 11. DC operating Point

2. From the icon menu, click run and a pop up window will appear listing the
node voltages and currents as shown on Figure 12.

Figure 12. DC operating point

B) DC Transfer Analysis
1. Open the simulation control panel then click the DC transfer tab. In the
Output and Source boxes, place V(Vout) and Vin respectively. (see
Figure 13).

Figure 13. DC transfer command

2. Select ok then click to the schematic editor window and run the simulation.
The DC transfer characteristics will pop up (Figure 14).

Figure 14. DC transfer result

 3. Vary Rload then perform DC Operating point and DC Transfer Analysis.
Complete Table 1 and compute for the voltage gain.

RLoad Id Vout Ro Transfer Av

(K) (A) (V) (K) Function (dB)

6.5

7.5

8.5

9.5

10.95

13

15

Table 1. Voltage gain dependency on output resistance.

What can you observe from the voltage gain with respect to the load resistance?
C) At Rload = 10.95K, Perform DC sweep analysis by sweeping Vin from 0 to 15
volts with an increment of 0.5. Plot the output response by probing the Vout node.

D) Perform AC analysis by setting the type of sweep to decade, number of points

per decade to 10, start and stop frequency to 0.1 to 100MEG respectively. Note
that in performing small signal AC analysis, the AC amplitude of the source
voltage must be set to 1. Plot the frequency response and determine gain.

Av (Voltage Gain) = dB
 E) Perform transient analysis with a stop time of 1ms then plot the output voltage
overlapping the input voltage.

III. Drawing and simulating the current mirror.

1. Draw the current steering circuit as shown below. Determine the branch
currents in the table.
 Rref I(V2) I(V3) Id2 I(V4)

(k) (mA) (mA) (mA) (mA)

10

15

20

From the data above, what can you observe?

What can you say about the usefulness of a current mirror circuit in an integrated
circuit?
IV. Review of differential amplifier
1. Draw a differential amplifier as seen below.

2. Perform transient analysis with a stop time of 1ms. Plot both the outputs and the
Vinplus terminal.
What can you observe on the response of the output?