All independent sources have the known SPICE3 properties. Besides, they
have a property called 'alias'. This alias is the name of the source.
The source is referred to by this name in the noise simulation command (equivalent
input noise source) and in the dcspweep simulation command.
So, if you want to do these types of simulations, be sure that you give
the noisy or swept source an alias name. Sometimes, you will forget
to do that before placing a simulation box (it often happens to experienced
users, too).
Then, you will receive an error message that the specified source could not be
found. Close the error window, edit the source properties and enter
the correct alias. Afterwards, edit the properties of the simulation box
once again (pop up the window and close it again). After closing
the property editor window, a check is done if you have edited things
which refer to alias names (nets or sources).
What's new in SPICECAD V1.7 is the availability of current and voltage
controlled current and voltage 'poly' sources.
These sources were
available in spice2g6 but have not been ported to spice3. People who
wanted to make use of macromodels supplied by silicon vendors for
speeding up simulations had to port all these models to the spice3
syntax by themselves.
Many solutions had been found to circumvent this: the availability
of a source called 'arbitrary source' can be used to model the behaviour
of these controlled poly sources. To convert controlled poly sources to
arbitrary spice3-compatible sources, a conversion script has to be run
over the macromodel netlist which is imported.
This conversion process had to be carried out by the user of the
macromodel library
before the import of macromodels into the spice3 netlist could be done.
Now, this conversion process is no longer necessary. For maximum spice2g6 compatibility, the fortran spice2g6 code which derives the output voltage or current of the controlled poly source was translated to C . This work was carried out by the creators of XSPICE, developed and written at Geogia Tech.