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Groups > sci.electronics.design > #450944 > unrolled thread

LTspice Loafing?

Started byrickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
First post2017-03-09 03:29 -0500
Last post2017-03-09 18:23 -0500
Articles 20 on this page of 65 — 21 participants

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Contents

  LTspice Loafing? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-09 03:29 -0500
    Re: LTspice Loafing? Johann Klammer <klammerj@NOSPAM.a1.net> - 2017-03-09 11:37 +0100
      Re: LTspice Loafing? Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> - 2017-03-09 09:53 -0500
        Re: LTspice Loafing? makolber@yahoo.com - 2017-03-09 07:03 -0800
          Re: LTspice Loafing? Don Kuenz <g@crcomp.net> - 2017-03-11 01:01 +0000
          Re: LTspice Loafing? tabbypurr@gmail.com - 2017-04-17 08:59 -0700
        Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-09 09:34 -0800
          Re: LTspice Loafing? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-09 18:11 -0500
        Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkinxyxy@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-09 11:33 -0800
          Re: LTspice Loafing? John S <Sophi.2@invalid.org> - 2017-03-09 14:53 -0600
            Re: LTspice Loafing? Lasse Langwadt Christensen <langwadt@fonz.dk> - 2017-03-09 13:42 -0800
              Re: LTspice Loafing? Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@On-My-Web-Site.com> - 2017-03-09 16:49 -0700
                Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-03-10 10:25 +0000
              Re: LTspice Loafing? Gerhard Hoffmann <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> - 2017-03-10 04:51 +0100
                Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-10 08:20 -0800
                  Re: LTspice Loafing? Gerhard Hoffmann <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> - 2017-03-10 19:06 +0100
                    Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkinxyxy@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-10 10:42 -0800
                      Re: LTspice Loafing? John S <Sophi.2@invalid.org> - 2017-03-10 20:29 -0600
                        Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-03-11 08:55 +0000
                          Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-11 08:46 -0800
                        Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-11 08:45 -0800
                          Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-03-11 17:11 +0000
                            Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-11 09:39 -0800
                              Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-03-11 18:16 +0000
                                Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-11 11:04 -0800
                    Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-03-10 22:56 +0000
                      Re: LTspice Loafing? Gerhard Hoffmann <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> - 2017-03-13 06:54 +0100
          Re: LTspice Loafing? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-09 17:39 -0500
          Re: LTspice Loafing? bitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> - 2017-03-09 18:01 -0500
            Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkinxyxy@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-09 15:49 -0800
              Re: LTspice Loafing? bitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> - 2017-03-09 19:07 -0500
                Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkinxyxy@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-09 16:13 -0800
                  Re: LTspice Loafing? bitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> - 2017-03-09 20:25 -0500
                    Re: LTspice Loafing? John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-03-09 19:11 -0800
                      Re: LTspice Loafing? Bill Martin <wwm@wwmartin.net> - 2017-03-10 10:24 -0800
              Re: LTspice Loafing? bitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> - 2017-03-12 23:32 -0400
          Re: LTspice Loafing? mixed nuts <melopsitticus@undulatus.budgie> - 2017-03-10 00:03 -0500
            Re: LTspice Loafing? mhx@iae.nl - 2017-04-17 01:02 -0700
              Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-17 16:14 +0100
                Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemoveandReplaceATkevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-17 17:38 +0100
                  Re: LTspice Loafing? Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@On-My-Web-Site.com> - 2017-04-17 09:54 -0700
                  Re: LTspice Loafing? mhx@iae.nl - 2017-04-17 11:55 -0700
                    Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-17 21:20 +0100
                      Re: LTspice Loafing? mhx@iae.nl - 2017-04-17 14:22 -0700
                        Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-18 19:16 +0100
                Re: LTspice Loafing? mhx@iae.nl - 2017-04-17 12:09 -0700
                  Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-17 21:19 +0100
                    Re: LTspice Loafing? mhx@iae.nl - 2017-04-17 14:14 -0700
                      Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-18 19:14 +0100
                        Re: LTspice Loafing? mhx@iae.nl - 2017-04-18 14:04 -0700
                          Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-19 08:45 +0100
                    Re: LTspice Loafing? "Tim Williams" <tiwill@seventransistorlabs.com> - 2017-04-19 00:35 -0500
                      Re: LTspice Loafing? mhx@iae.nl - 2017-04-19 05:28 -0700
                        Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-19 14:00 +0100
                          Re: LTspice Loafing? mhx@iae.nl - 2017-04-19 10:35 -0700
                            Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-04-19 20:29 +0100
          Re: LTspice Loafing? John Devereux <john@devereux.me.uk> - 2017-03-10 07:19 +0000
      Re: LTspice Loafing? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-09 13:23 -0500
    Re: LTspice Loafing? bill.sloman@ieee.org - 2017-03-09 03:15 -0800
      Re: LTspice Loafing? "Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> - 2017-03-09 20:12 +0000
        Re: LTspice Loafing? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-09 17:47 -0500
        Re: LTspice Loafing? bitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> - 2017-03-09 18:09 -0500
          Re: LTspice Loafing? Johann Klammer <klammerj@NOSPAM.a1.net> - 2017-03-10 01:00 +0100
            Re: LTspice Loafing? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-09 19:52 -0500
    Re: LTspice Loafing? bitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> - 2017-03-09 18:23 -0500

Page 2 of 4 — ← Prev page 1 [2] 3 4  Next page →


#451322

FromJohn Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com>
Date2017-03-11 08:45 -0800
Message-ID<k2a8cc1jfblh5j3treis244mojipt6et25@4ax.com>
In reply to#451259
On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 20:29:16 -0600, John S <Sophi.2@invalid.org>
wrote:

>On 3/10/2017 12:42 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 19:06:04 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann
>> <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Am 10.03.2017 um 17:20 schrieb John Larkin:
>>>> On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 04:51:03 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann
>>>> <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> LTspice 4:  Linux, virtual Win7 machine  VMware Workstation 12: 42 sec
>>>>> same machine in a Linux window LTspice4 with wine under Linux:  22 sec
>>>>>
>>>>> Machine is a Dell Precision "portable Workstation"  3.5 years old.
>>>>> "portable" has to be taken with a grain of salt. 240W power supply.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On my Dell, that sim runs about 10% slower if I plot the waveform
>>>> during the run. I can imagine that PCs with slow graphics could take a
>>>> bigger hit. Do VMs add graphics overhead?
>>>
>>> I suppose they do. There must be a lot of exchanging graphics state
>>> when switching tasks and there must be a lot of task switches; when I
>>> move the cursor from a win7 window to the Linux table top: that looks
>>> harmless, but someone has to decide now which operating system has to
>>> react on the next click. And that click could trigger actions is a
>>> 3D game or 3D layout in Altium Designer.
>>>
>>> I also think that the 2nd  2560*144 pixel monitor attached to my laptop
>>> slows things down, somewhat. Waveform was ON in my test.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> We once rented a compute farm from Amazon to run a slow sim. It wasn't
>>>> any faster than our 4-core Dells.
>>>
>>> Spice is well-known for being hard to parallelize. It has been tried
>>> over and over again. It is not even really floating-point limited.
>>> There has been H-spice on the Cray trying to vectorize it. Do you
>>> remember all those Weitek/NS32032 coprocessor boards that were sold
>>> as Spice accelerators? No one ever made a breakthrough.
>>>
>>> Gerhard
>>>
>>
>> I'd buy one of those Nvidia boards if it would speed up Spice by, say,
>> 100:1.
>
>In your example LTSpice listing, just change your maximum time step from 
>10 ns to 10 us. That will give you great speed with no detectable loss 
>of detail.
>
>

I deliberately set the time step short to slow down this simple
simulation, so it could be timed in seconds.

But for LC oscillators, the default/automatic time step will create
considerable frequency error, several per cent typically. What's awful
is simulating high-Q circuits accurately in time domain, like crystal
oscillators.


-- 

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics 

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#451329

From"Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk>
Date2017-03-11 17:11 +0000
Message-ID<J7-dnbFYu9R0rVnFnZ2dnUU7-KPNnZ2d@giganews.com>
In reply to#451322
"John Larkin"  wrote in message 
news:k2a8cc1jfblh5j3treis244mojipt6et25@4ax.com...

On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 20:29:16 -0600, John S <Sophi.2@invalid.org>
wrote:

>On 3/10/2017 12:42 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 19:06:04 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann
>> <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Am 10.03.2017 um 17:20 schrieb John Larkin:
>>>> On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 04:51:03 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann
>>>> <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> LTspice 4:  Linux, virtual Win7 machine  VMware Workstation 12: 42 sec
>>>>> same machine in a Linux window LTspice4 with wine under Linux:  22 sec
>>>>>
>>>>> Machine is a Dell Precision "portable Workstation"  3.5 years old.
>>>>> "portable" has to be taken with a grain of salt. 240W power supply.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On my Dell, that sim runs about 10% slower if I plot the waveform
>>>> during the run. I can imagine that PCs with slow graphics could take a
>>>> bigger hit. Do VMs add graphics overhead?
>>>
>>> I suppose they do. There must be a lot of exchanging graphics state
>>> when switching tasks and there must be a lot of task switches; when I
>>> move the cursor from a win7 window to the Linux table top: that looks
>>> harmless, but someone has to decide now which operating system has to
>>> react on the next click. And that click could trigger actions is a
>>> 3D game or 3D layout in Altium Designer.
>>>
>>> I also think that the 2nd  2560*144 pixel monitor attached to my laptop
>>> slows things down, somewhat. Waveform was ON in my test.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> We once rented a compute farm from Amazon to run a slow sim. It wasn't
>>>> any faster than our 4-core Dells.
>>>
>>> Spice is well-known for being hard to parallelize. It has been tried
>>> over and over again. It is not even really floating-point limited.
>>> There has been H-spice on the Cray trying to vectorize it. Do you
>>> remember all those Weitek/NS32032 coprocessor boards that were sold
>>> as Spice accelerators? No one ever made a breakthrough.
>>>
>>> Gerhard
>>>
>>
>> I'd buy one of those Nvidia boards if it would speed up Spice by, say,
>> 100:1.
>
>In your example LTSpice listing, just change your maximum time step from
>10 ns to 10 us. That will give you great speed with no detectable loss
>of detail.
>
>

>I deliberately set the time step short to slow down this simple
>simulation, so it could be timed in seconds.

I have an option in SS to have variable wait states so that if you are using 
the "change component values on the schematic  in real time" feature, the 
sim don't finish before you can do so :-)

>But for LC oscillators, the default/automatic time step will create
>considerable frequency error, several per cent typically. What's awful
>is simulating high-Q circuits accurately in time domain, like crystal
>oscillators.

Yes. A real pain. As noted in my other post though, I find most design work 
can be done with a de-Qed xtal.

However,  for accurate, full Q phase noise, at my day job, its the $100k per 
seat, per year Cadence Periodic Steady State Phase Noise. I usually use the 
shooting method, rather than the harmonic balance. Often have to include 
extra resistance in series with caps to get it to converge though.

Phase noise results in Cadence are very impressive. Usually within the 1dB 
or so error range. Its a complicated calculation. For every point in the 
cycle, small signal noise is changing due to different instantaneous 
currents. It handles it all in the wash. Does really well on up conversion 
of the 1/f noise of devices and resistors.

I don't know of any freebie PSS/PSSN. It requires a totally different 
calculation engine than spice

-- Kevin Aylward
http://www.anasoft.co.uk - SuperSpice
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/ee/index.html 

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#451334

FromJohn Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com>
Date2017-03-11 09:39 -0800
Message-ID<0uc8cc5nn74l5s2c20jk535tc4redhcke2@4ax.com>
In reply to#451329
On Sat, 11 Mar 2017 17:11:18 -0000, "Kevin Aylward"
<kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> wrote:

>"John Larkin"  wrote in message 
>news:k2a8cc1jfblh5j3treis244mojipt6et25@4ax.com...
>
>On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 20:29:16 -0600, John S <Sophi.2@invalid.org>
>wrote:
>
>>On 3/10/2017 12:42 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 19:06:04 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann
>>> <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Am 10.03.2017 um 17:20 schrieb John Larkin:
>>>>> On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 04:51:03 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann
>>>>> <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> LTspice 4:  Linux, virtual Win7 machine  VMware Workstation 12: 42 sec
>>>>>> same machine in a Linux window LTspice4 with wine under Linux:  22 sec
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Machine is a Dell Precision "portable Workstation"  3.5 years old.
>>>>>> "portable" has to be taken with a grain of salt. 240W power supply.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On my Dell, that sim runs about 10% slower if I plot the waveform
>>>>> during the run. I can imagine that PCs with slow graphics could take a
>>>>> bigger hit. Do VMs add graphics overhead?
>>>>
>>>> I suppose they do. There must be a lot of exchanging graphics state
>>>> when switching tasks and there must be a lot of task switches; when I
>>>> move the cursor from a win7 window to the Linux table top: that looks
>>>> harmless, but someone has to decide now which operating system has to
>>>> react on the next click. And that click could trigger actions is a
>>>> 3D game or 3D layout in Altium Designer.
>>>>
>>>> I also think that the 2nd  2560*144 pixel monitor attached to my laptop
>>>> slows things down, somewhat. Waveform was ON in my test.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> We once rented a compute farm from Amazon to run a slow sim. It wasn't
>>>>> any faster than our 4-core Dells.
>>>>
>>>> Spice is well-known for being hard to parallelize. It has been tried
>>>> over and over again. It is not even really floating-point limited.
>>>> There has been H-spice on the Cray trying to vectorize it. Do you
>>>> remember all those Weitek/NS32032 coprocessor boards that were sold
>>>> as Spice accelerators? No one ever made a breakthrough.
>>>>
>>>> Gerhard
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'd buy one of those Nvidia boards if it would speed up Spice by, say,
>>> 100:1.
>>
>>In your example LTSpice listing, just change your maximum time step from
>>10 ns to 10 us. That will give you great speed with no detectable loss
>>of detail.
>>
>>
>
>>I deliberately set the time step short to slow down this simple
>>simulation, so it could be timed in seconds.
>
>I have an option in SS to have variable wait states so that if you are using 
>the "change component values on the schematic  in real time" feature, the 
>sim don't finish before you can do so :-)

Just crank down the time step?

I want a Spice with continuous waveform updates and component value
sliders. And 1000x the compute power that I have now.

It's impressive how fast one can converge two or three variables when
it's trimpots and oscilloscopes, when it might never be possible with
Spice.

>
>>But for LC oscillators, the default/automatic time step will create
>>considerable frequency error, several per cent typically. What's awful
>>is simulating high-Q circuits accurately in time domain, like crystal
>>oscillators.
>
>Yes. A real pain. As noted in my other post though, I find most design work 
>can be done with a de-Qed xtal.
>

XOs are best analyzed in frequency/phase; startup delay seldom
matters. But I design triggered oscillators that need to be analyzed
in time domain. Spice is terrible, in transient mode, for displaying
the frequency of a waveform to PPMs. Useless, actually.


>However,  for accurate, full Q phase noise, at my day job, its the $100k per 
>seat, per year Cadence Periodic Steady State Phase Noise. I usually use the 
>shooting method, rather than the harmonic balance. Often have to include 
>extra resistance in series with caps to get it to converge though.
>
>Phase noise results in Cadence are very impressive. Usually within the 1dB 
>or so error range. Its a complicated calculation. For every point in the 
>cycle, small signal noise is changing due to different instantaneous 
>currents. It handles it all in the wash. Does really well on up conversion 
>of the 1/f noise of devices and resistors.
>
>I don't know of any freebie PSS/PSSN. It requires a totally different 
>calculation engine than spice

I bet I can breadboard and test some oscillators faster than I could
simulate them! And save most of that $100K.


-- 

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics 

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#451345

From"Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk>
Date2017-03-11 18:16 +0000
Message-ID<ze2dnRKmH41yo1nFnZ2dnUU7-b_NnZ2d@giganews.com>
In reply to#451334
"John Larkin"  wrote in message 
news:0uc8cc5nn74l5s2c20jk535tc4redhcke2@4ax.com...


>Just crank down the time step?

My wait state is in time, so you have easier control over how fast the sim 
goes. Also it avoids generating huge files, which would happen by cranking 
down the time step.

I never use this feature myself. Just never, ever. Added it for 
completeness. Adding Monte Carlo gave me the ability to stuff the matrix 
directly, so it was a minor detail to add real time change of the values.


>I want a Spice with continuous waveform updates and component value
>sliders. And 1000x the compute power that I have now.

>It's impressive how fast one can converge two or three variables when
>it's trimpots and oscilloscopes, when it might never be possible with
>Spice.

Yep.

>
>>But for LC oscillators, the default/automatic time step will create
>>considerable frequency error, several per cent typically. What's awful
>>is simulating high-Q circuits accurately in time domain, like crystal
>>oscillators.
>
>Yes. A real pain. As noted in my other post though, I find most design work
>can be done with a de-Qed xtal.
>

>XOs are best analyzed in frequency/phase; startup delay seldom
>matters. But I design triggered oscillators that need to be analyzed
>in time domain. Spice is terrible, in transient mode, for displaying
>the frequency of a waveform to PPMs. Useless, actually.

Sure, but running De-qued and dividing by the de-qued facter does give you a 
really good estimate of what it does at full Q. I have checked this 
extensively over the years by running PSS and TRAN.

Sort of strange really. Don't matter if the series c1 of the xtal is 0.1ff 
or 10p, the loop gain peak stays the same value.

When your dealing with board level stuff, the idea of still getting a net 
low impedance through a 0.1ff cap is notable.

>However,  for accurate, full Q phase noise, at my day job, its the $100k 
>per
>seat, per year Cadence Periodic Steady State Phase Noise. I usually use the
>shooting method, rather than the harmonic balance. Often have to include
>extra resistance in series with caps to get it to converge though.
>
>Phase noise results in Cadence are very impressive. Usually within the 1dB
>or so error range. Its a complicated calculation. For every point in the
>cycle, small signal noise is changing due to different instantaneous
>currents. It handles it all in the wash. Does really well on up conversion
>of the 1/f noise of devices and resistors.
>
>>I don't know of any freebie PSS/PSSN. It requires a totally different
>>calculation engine than spice

>I bet I can breadboard and test some oscillators faster than I could
>simulate them! And save most of that $100K.

Sure, for just the oscillator, but the whole chip I design uses 10,000s of 
transistors, so the cost has to be for paid anyway.

An oscillator chip, is quite a bunch of stuff. A TCXO has chebychev function 
generators to compensate the frequency v temperature response. An OCXO has 
heater control feedback loops. Several regulators, output rf buffers, which 
are non trivial to get -165 dBc noise. VCXO linearizing circuits. Its a bit 
of a meal to get 50ppb on a TCXO and 1ppb on a TCOCXO. Every chip 
individually compensated.



-- Kevin Aylward
http://www.anasoft.co.uk - SuperSpice
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/ee/index.html 

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#451351

FromJohn Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com>
Date2017-03-11 11:04 -0800
Message-ID<q5i8cc1e4kjo8lneg746qr00rljiv37a3v@4ax.com>
In reply to#451345
On Sat, 11 Mar 2017 18:16:13 -0000, "Kevin Aylward"
<kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk> wrote:

>"John Larkin"  wrote in message 
>news:0uc8cc5nn74l5s2c20jk535tc4redhcke2@4ax.com...
>
>
>>Just crank down the time step?
>
>My wait state is in time, so you have easier control over how fast the sim 
>goes. Also it avoids generating huge files, which would happen by cranking 
>down the time step.
>
>I never use this feature myself. Just never, ever. Added it for 
>completeness. Adding Monte Carlo gave me the ability to stuff the matrix 
>directly, so it was a minor detail to add real time change of the values.
>
>
>>I want a Spice with continuous waveform updates and component value
>>sliders. And 1000x the compute power that I have now.
>
>>It's impressive how fast one can converge two or three variables when
>>it's trimpots and oscilloscopes, when it might never be possible with
>>Spice.
>
>Yep.
>
>>
>>>But for LC oscillators, the default/automatic time step will create
>>>considerable frequency error, several per cent typically. What's awful
>>>is simulating high-Q circuits accurately in time domain, like crystal
>>>oscillators.
>>
>>Yes. A real pain. As noted in my other post though, I find most design work
>>can be done with a de-Qed xtal.
>>
>
>>XOs are best analyzed in frequency/phase; startup delay seldom
>>matters. But I design triggered oscillators that need to be analyzed
>>in time domain. Spice is terrible, in transient mode, for displaying
>>the frequency of a waveform to PPMs. Useless, actually.
>
>Sure, but running De-qued and dividing by the de-qued facter does give you a 
>really good estimate of what it does at full Q. I have checked this 
>extensively over the years by running PSS and TRAN.
>
>Sort of strange really. Don't matter if the series c1 of the xtal is 0.1ff 
>or 10p, the loop gain peak stays the same value.
>
>When your dealing with board level stuff, the idea of still getting a net 
>low impedance through a 0.1ff cap is notable.
>
>>However,  for accurate, full Q phase noise, at my day job, its the $100k 
>>per
>>seat, per year Cadence Periodic Steady State Phase Noise. I usually use the
>>shooting method, rather than the harmonic balance. Often have to include
>>extra resistance in series with caps to get it to converge though.
>>
>>Phase noise results in Cadence are very impressive. Usually within the 1dB
>>or so error range. Its a complicated calculation. For every point in the
>>cycle, small signal noise is changing due to different instantaneous
>>currents. It handles it all in the wash. Does really well on up conversion
>>of the 1/f noise of devices and resistors.
>>
>>>I don't know of any freebie PSS/PSSN. It requires a totally different
>>>calculation engine than spice
>
>>I bet I can breadboard and test some oscillators faster than I could
>>simulate them! And save most of that $100K.
>
>Sure, for just the oscillator, but the whole chip I design uses 10,000s of 
>transistors, so the cost has to be for paid anyway.
>
>An oscillator chip, is quite a bunch of stuff. A TCXO has chebychev function 
>generators to compensate the frequency v temperature response. An OCXO has 
>heater control feedback loops. Several regulators, output rf buffers, which 
>are non trivial to get -165 dBc noise. VCXO linearizing circuits. Its a bit 
>of a meal to get 50ppb on a TCXO and 1ppb on a TCOCXO. Every chip 
>individually compensated.


Frequency-domain analysis is faster than transient, but it ignores
nonlinearities, and nonlinearities are what ultimately matters. Which
is one reason that I buy XOs nowadays and don't design them. You can
do that for me.

There are some stunning 1x1" OCXOs around lately, incredible phase
noise specs for ca $80. Maybe people have figured out how to slice
SC-cut crystals cheap. Just a good bare SC-cut rock used to cost $250.


-- 

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics 

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#451224

From"Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk>
Date2017-03-10 22:56 +0000
Message-ID<DtednXJyQIyPsl7FnZ2dnUU7-LnNnZ2d@giganews.com>
In reply to#451183
"Gerhard Hoffmann"  wrote in message 
news:eig88oFdvpkU1@mid.individual.net...

Am 10.03.2017 um 17:20 schrieb John Larkin:
> On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 04:51:03 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann
> <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de> wrote:

>>
>> LTspice 4:  Linux, virtual Win7 machine  VMware Workstation 12: 42 sec
>> same machine in a Linux window LTspice4 with wine under Linux:  22 sec
>>
>> Machine is a Dell Precision "portable Workstation"  3.5 years old.
>> "portable" has to be taken with a grain of salt. 240W power supply.

>
>
> On my Dell, that sim runs about 10% slower if I plot the waveform
> during the run. I can imagine that PCs with slow graphics could take a
> bigger hit. Do VMs add graphics overhead?

I suppose they do. There must be a lot of exchanging graphics state
when switching tasks and there must be a lot of task switches; when I
move the cursor from a win7 window to the Linux table top: that looks
harmless, but someone has to decide now which operating system has to
react on the next click. And that click could trigger actions is a
3D game or 3D layout in Altium Designer.

I also think that the 2nd  2560*144 pixel monitor attached to my laptop
slows things down, somewhat. Waveform was ON in my test.



> We once rented a compute farm from Amazon to run a slow sim. It wasn't
> any faster than our 4-core Dells.

>Spice is well-known for being hard to parallelize. It has been tried
>over and over again. It is not even really floating-point limited.
>There has been H-spice on the Cray trying to vectorize it. Do you
>remember all those Weitek/NS32032 coprocessor boards that were sold
>as Spice accelerators? No one ever made a breakthrough.


Not sure where you get your information from. Spice can, and has been 
paralysed quite effectively. The core function of parallel processing all 
the elements in a matrix has been around for a long time in physics 
applications e.g. solving nuclear bomb equations. Those systems you read 
about that have Petraflop performance at  er..ahmm, 10 MWs of power 
basically do the same sort of calculations that spice does.

Gaussian elimination of a matrix is a classic software problem that can be 
parallelised pretty easily. All elements in a row, and all rows, can all be 
multiplied at once. Each reduction of the matrix size does not depend on any 
other calculation. Many other software algorithms can be very difficult to 
parallelise like this.

I use Cadence Spectre every day, and using its APS, multicore features 
speedups are really good.

There is also Mentors FastSpice, purchased as Berkeley Design Systems, that 
runs 20 Million analog transistor circuits.

-- Kevin Aylward
http://www.anasoft.co.uk - SuperSpice
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/ee/index.html 

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#451585

FromGerhard Hoffmann <ghf@hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de>
Date2017-03-13 06:54 +0100
Message-ID<eimqhaFmqupU1@mid.individual.net>
In reply to#451224
Am 10.03.2017 um 23:56 schrieb Kevin Aylward:

> Not sure where you get your information from. Spice can, and has been
> paralysed quite effectively. The core function of parallel processing

Freud at work?

> all the elements in a matrix has been around for a long time in physics
> applications e.g. solving nuclear bomb equations. Those systems you read
> about that have Petraflop performance at  er..ahmm, 10 MWs of power
> basically do the same sort of calculations that spice does.
>
> Gaussian elimination of a matrix is a classic software problem that can
> be parallelised pretty easily. All elements in a row, and all rows, can
> all be multiplied at once. Each reduction of the matrix size does not
> depend on any other calculation. Many other software algorithms can be
> very difficult to parallelise like this.

Yeah, unless you get pipeline stalls from pivot checks or dealing
with sparse matrix methods because your huge matrix contains
mostly zeroes. The existence of hand-optimized packets for that
is proof enough that there _are_ performance problems.

In our first CAD course, we had to write that stuff all ourselves
before we were given the Spice 2G4 sources: constructing the
matrix, finding the o/p, linearization around the o(p, plugging
transistors into the matrix, time discretization of Caps/
companion models, inversion, pivoting, integration and all that.

And I have also ported the 3F version to Interactive Unix on
the 286. That was not so funny with the small segments.

regards, Gerhard

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#451062

Fromrickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
Date2017-03-09 17:39 -0500
Message-ID<o9sldr$frk$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#451021
On 3/9/2017 2:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>
>> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
>>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
>>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
>>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
>>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
>>>>
>>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
>>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
>>>> something wrong?
>>>>
>>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
>>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
>>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
>>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
>>>
>>
>> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
>> with real flash drives.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Phil Hobbs
>
> Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.
>
>
> Version 4
> SHEET 1 880 680
> WIRE 16 -16 -160 -16
> WIRE 208 -16 16 -16
> WIRE 336 -16 208 -16
> WIRE 208 48 208 -16
> WIRE 336 48 336 -16
> WIRE -160 144 -160 -16
> WIRE 16 144 16 -16
> WIRE 208 192 208 128
> WIRE 336 192 336 112
> WIRE 336 192 208 192
> WIRE 208 256 208 192
> WIRE 16 304 16 224
> WIRE 144 304 16 304
> WIRE -160 352 -160 224
> WIRE 16 400 16 304
> WIRE 208 400 208 352
> WIRE 16 544 16 464
> WIRE 208 544 208 480
> FLAG 208 544 0
> FLAG 16 544 0
> FLAG -160 352 0
> SYMBOL ind2 192 32 R0
> WINDOW 0 -50 31 Left 2
> WINDOW 3 -54 69 Left 2
> SYMATTR InstName L1
> SYMATTR Value 1m
> SYMATTR Type ind
> SYMBOL ind2 224 496 R180
> WINDOW 0 -54 75 Left 2
> WINDOW 3 -63 38 Left 2
> SYMATTR InstName L2
> SYMATTR Value 20µ
> SYMATTR Type ind
> SYMBOL cap 320 48 R0
> WINDOW 0 63 12 Left 2
> WINDOW 3 59 51 Left 2
> SYMATTR InstName C1
> SYMATTR Value 50n
> SYMBOL cap 0 400 R0
> WINDOW 0 61 10 Left 2
> WINDOW 3 64 46 Left 2
> SYMATTR InstName C2
> SYMATTR Value 1µ
> SYMBOL npn 144 256 R0
> WINDOW 0 116 42 Left 2
> WINDOW 3 92 77 Left 2
> SYMATTR InstName Q1
> SYMATTR Value BC847B
> SYMBOL res 0 128 R0
> WINDOW 0 52 39 Left 2
> WINDOW 3 49 75 Left 2
> SYMATTR InstName R1
> SYMATTR Value 20K
> SYMBOL voltage -160 128 R0
> WINDOW 0 51 41 Left 2
> WINDOW 3 50 75 Left 2
> SYMATTR InstName V1
> SYMATTR Value 10
> TEXT 240 232 Left 2 !K L1 L2 0.98
> TEXT -240 480 Left 2 !.tran 0 20m 0 10n uic
> TEXT 424 272 Left 2 ;LC Oscillator from C5A
> TEXT 416 312 Left 2 ;Boresight Alignment Kit
> TEXT 448 376 Left 2 ;JL  roughly 1975

It's going to be over a minute and the CPU usage never got above 20% 
total with spice taking less than 5%.  Disk activity was minimal, under 
450 kB/s at the peaks, under 50% utilization peak.

I don't see anything limiting the computer in any way.  LTspice just 
isn't running as much as it could.  Is there a setting somewhere to keep 
it running in the background?

-- 

Rick C

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#451067

Frombitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net>
Date2017-03-09 18:01 -0500
Message-ID<59lwA.13686$2T6.3446@fx44.iad>
In reply to#451021
On 03/09/2017 02:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>
>> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
>>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
>>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
>>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
>>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
>>>>
>>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
>>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
>>>> something wrong?
>>>>
>>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
>>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
>>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
>>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
>>>
>>
>> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
>> with real flash drives.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Phil Hobbs
>
> Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.

I get a simulation speed average of about 150uS/sec on my i7-5500U 2.4 
Ghz laptop/SSD drive combo with the "normal" solver, running on 
Wine/Xubuntu.

CPU usage 100%, altering the number of cores seems to make no 
difference. Only 6G of RAM and a rather sad 32k/256k of L1/L2 cache per 
core, so not really surprising it's TLB-missing all day.


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#451077

FromJohn Larkin <jjlarkinxyxy@highlandtechnology.com>
Date2017-03-09 15:49 -0800
Message-ID<geq3cc5hbbivvpgcgs5dl4uu8vnrca6rrg@4ax.com>
In reply to#451067
On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 18:01:20 -0500, bitrex
<bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> wrote:

>On 03/09/2017 02:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
>> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
>>>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
>>>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
>>>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
>>>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
>>>>>
>>>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
>>>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
>>>>> something wrong?
>>>>>
>>>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
>>>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
>>>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
>>>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
>>> with real flash drives.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Phil Hobbs
>>
>> Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.
>
>I get a simulation speed average of about 150uS/sec on my i7-5500U 2.4 
>Ghz laptop/SSD drive combo with the "normal" solver, running on 
>Wine/Xubuntu.

I'm seeing 720 us/s, Win7, newish Dell desktop with 8G ram.



-- 

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing   precision measurement 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

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#451083

Frombitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net>
Date2017-03-09 19:07 -0500
Message-ID<_6mwA.51849$wC7.37967@fx14.iad>
In reply to#451077
On 03/09/2017 06:49 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 18:01:20 -0500, bitrex
> <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> On 03/09/2017 02:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
>>> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
>>>>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
>>>>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
>>>>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
>>>>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
>>>>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
>>>>>> something wrong?
>>>>>>
>>>>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
>>>>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
>>>>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
>>>>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
>>>> with real flash drives.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>>
>>>> Phil Hobbs
>>>
>>> Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.
>>
>> I get a simulation speed average of about 150uS/sec on my i7-5500U 2.4
>> Ghz laptop/SSD drive combo with the "normal" solver, running on
>> Wine/Xubuntu.
>
> I'm seeing 720 us/s, Win7, newish Dell desktop with 8G ram.

What's the processor?

As a "5th gen" low-power i7 the 5500U stacks up pretty poorly against 
more modern "7th gen" desktop offerings:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-5500U+%40+2.40GHz

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#451084

FromJohn Larkin <jjlarkinxyxy@highlandtechnology.com>
Date2017-03-09 16:13 -0800
Message-ID<3or3cclshqho8005uuaofi3gragm8f0cuh@4ax.com>
In reply to#451083
On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 19:07:21 -0500, bitrex
<bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> wrote:

>On 03/09/2017 06:49 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 18:01:20 -0500, bitrex
>> <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 03/09/2017 02:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
>>>> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
>>>>>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
>>>>>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
>>>>>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
>>>>>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
>>>>>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
>>>>>>> something wrong?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
>>>>>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
>>>>>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
>>>>>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
>>>>> with real flash drives.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>
>>>>> Phil Hobbs
>>>>
>>>> Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.
>>>
>>> I get a simulation speed average of about 150uS/sec on my i7-5500U 2.4
>>> Ghz laptop/SSD drive combo with the "normal" solver, running on
>>> Wine/Xubuntu.
>>
>> I'm seeing 720 us/s, Win7, newish Dell desktop with 8G ram.
>
>What's the processor?

Xeon E5-1603 v3 2.8 GHz. Whatever that means.



>
>As a "5th gen" low-power i7 the 5500U stacks up pretty poorly against 
>more modern "7th gen" desktop offerings:
>
>https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-5500U+%40+2.40GHz

-- 

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing   precision measurement 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

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#451099

Frombitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net>
Date2017-03-09 20:25 -0500
Message-ID<rgnwA.37904$Rm5.18050@fx31.iad>
In reply to#451084
On 03/09/2017 07:13 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> Xeon E5-1603 v3 2.8 GHz

Ah, maybe one of the Facebook specials!

<http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/>

They're available refurb on NewEgg for $38, woah.

<https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4GH4R61733&cm_re=Intel_Xeon_E5-1603-_-9SIA4GH4R61733-_-Product>

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#451113

FromJohn Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com>
Date2017-03-09 19:11 -0800
Message-ID<q964ccpineeveqe584ul9n4o8u9j92mkg9@4ax.com>
In reply to#451099
On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 20:25:42 -0500, bitrex
<bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> wrote:

>On 03/09/2017 07:13 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>> Xeon E5-1603 v3 2.8 GHz
>
>Ah, maybe one of the Facebook specials!
>
><http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/>

Well, it's a Dell box.

>
>They're available refurb on NewEgg for $38, woah.
>
><https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4GH4R61733&cm_re=Intel_Xeon_E5-1603-_-9SIA4GH4R61733-_-Product>

Refurbished?


-- 

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics 

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#451192

FromBill Martin <wwm@wwmartin.net>
Date2017-03-10 10:24 -0800
Message-ID<o9uqri$pl3$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#451113
On 03/09/2017 07:11 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 20:25:42 -0500, bitrex
> <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> On 03/09/2017 07:13 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>>> Xeon E5-1603 v3 2.8 GHz
>>
>> Ah, maybe one of the Facebook specials!
>>
>> <http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/>
>
> Well, it's a Dell box.
>
>>
>> They're available refurb on NewEgg for $38, woah.
>>
>> <https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4GH4R61733&cm_re=Intel_Xeon_E5-1603-_-9SIA4GH4R61733-_-Product>
>
> Refurbished?
>
>
Does that mean "pulled off a board & re-balled"?

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#451580

Frombitrex <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net>
Date2017-03-12 23:32 -0400
Message-ID<ypoxA.40401$u84.10221@fx35.iad>
In reply to#451077
On 03/09/2017 06:49 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 18:01:20 -0500, bitrex
> <bitrex@de.lete.earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> On 03/09/2017 02:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
>>> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
>>>>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
>>>>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
>>>>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
>>>>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
>>>>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
>>>>>> something wrong?
>>>>>>
>>>>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
>>>>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
>>>>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
>>>>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
>>>> with real flash drives.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>>
>>>> Phil Hobbs
>>>
>>> Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.
>>
>> I get a simulation speed average of about 150uS/sec on my i7-5500U 2.4
>> Ghz laptop/SSD drive combo with the "normal" solver, running on
>> Wine/Xubuntu.
>
> I'm seeing 720 us/s, Win7, newish Dell desktop with 8G ram.

Whoops, I made an error. Turns out my laptop was throttling the CPU 
while charging when the battery was at very low charge when I ran the 
test...

With a fully-charged battery I'm getting about 700uS/sec simulation 
speed. 150uS/sec did seem sluggish for an i7...

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#451122

Frommixed nuts <melopsitticus@undulatus.budgie>
Date2017-03-10 00:03 -0500
Message-ID<o9tc39$ecp$1@gioia.aioe.org>
In reply to#451021
On 3/9/2017 2:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>
>> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
>>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
>>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
>>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
>>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
>>>>
>>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
>>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
>>>> something wrong?
>>>>
>>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
>>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
>>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
>>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
>>>
>> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
>> with real flash drives.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Phil Hobbs
>
> Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.

Less than 15 sec on an HP flaptop (ZBook G3 i7...) with 12% of one cpu. 
Slower and busier with a plot updating.

-- 
Grizzly H.

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#456671

Frommhx@iae.nl
Date2017-04-17 01:02 -0700
Message-ID<779882df-64e0-4433-8b58-fcdce25392ac@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#451122
On Friday, March 10, 2017 at 6:03:40 AM UTC+1, mixed nuts wrote:
> On 3/9/2017 2:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> > On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
> > <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
> >>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
> >>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
> >>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
> >>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
> >>>>
> >>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
> >>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
> >>>> something wrong?
> >>>>
> >>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
> >>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
> >>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
> >>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
> >>>
> >> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
> >> with real flash drives.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
> >> Phil Hobbs
> >
> > Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.
> 
> Less than 15 sec on an HP flaptop (ZBook G3 i7...) with 12% of one cpu. 
> Slower and busier with a plot updating.
> 
> -- 
> Grizzly H.

That is really good!

* LTspice Alternate Solver          33.129 seconds
* LTspice normal solver             22.392 seconds
* LTspice normal solver with .save  13.306 seconds
* NGSPICE                            9.660 seconds
* NGSPICE with .save                 9.002 seconds

OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4930K CPU @ 3.40GHz
Logical processors: 12
Total DRAM available = 32702.8 MB.
DRAM currently available = 25883.0 MB.

The big speedup caused by .save is the most remarkable
for me. My PC has an SSD and ReadyBoost turns itself off
(its says: no gain possible).

-marcel

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#456692

From"Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemovAT@kevinaylward.co.uk>
Date2017-04-17 16:14 +0100
Message-ID<pbmdnWA37PxVRmnFnZ2dnUU7-afNnZ2d@giganews.com>
In reply to#456671
wrote in message 
news:779882df-64e0-4433-8b58-fcdce25392ac@googlegroups.com...

On Friday, March 10, 2017 at 6:03:40 AM UTC+1, mixed nuts wrote:
> On 3/9/2017 2:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> > On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
> > <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
> >>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
> >>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
> >>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
> >>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
> >>>>
> >>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
> >>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
> >>>> something wrong?
> >>>>
> >>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
> >>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
> >>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
> >>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
> >>>
> >> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
> >> with real flash drives.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
>> >> Phil Hobbs
> >
>> > Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.
>
>> Less than 15 sec on an HP flaptop (ZBook G3 i7...) with 12% of one cpu.
>> Slower and busier with a plot updating.
>
> -- 
>> Grizzly H.

>That is really good!

>* LTspice Alternate Solver          33.129 seconds
>* LTspice normal solver             22.392 seconds
>* LTspice normal solver with .save  13.306 seconds
>* NGSPICE                            9.660 seconds
>* NGSPICE with .save                 9.002 seconds

This don't make any sense to me. LTSpice should be running several times 
faster than NGSpice.

Are you running default settings in LTSpice, or say, setting a minimum step 
time?

It is possible to override stuff in LTSpice, such that it aint running 
anything like as fast as it should. Its also possible to speed it up a bit 
by changing some settings for some circuits.

I would be interested in what settings you have for reltol, trtol and min 
step size

The spice default Spice3 value of trtol is 7. I think LTSpice might use 1, I 
use 1 in SS. The 1 setting can slow it down by a factor of 3, but for some 
switching circuits, a value of 7 generates way too large errors.

-- Kevin Aylward
http://www.anasoft.co.uk - SuperSpice
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/ee/index.html 

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#456703

From"Kevin Aylward" <kevinRemoveandReplaceATkevinaylward.co.uk>
Date2017-04-17 17:38 +0100
Message-ID<6sCdnSDg_sjwcmnFnZ2dnUU7-UXNnZ2d@giganews.com>
In reply to#456692
>"Kevin Aylward"  wrote in message 
>news:pbmdnWA37PxVRmnFnZ2dnUU7-afNnZ2d@giganews.com...

>wrote in message 
>news:779882df-64e0-4433-8b58-fcdce25392ac@googlegroups.com...

On Friday, March 10, 2017 at 6:03:40 AM UTC+1, mixed nuts wrote:
> On 3/9/2017 2:33 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> > On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 09:53:26 -0500, Phil Hobbs
> > <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On 03/09/2017 05:37 AM, Johann Klammer wrote:
> >>> On 03/09/2017 09:29 AM, rickman wrote:
> >>>> I was running some simulations on LTspice and it is not even using
> >>>> 5% of my CPU.  Nothing else is topping it and the entire computer
> >>>> is pretty much at idle.  What could be limiting the speed?
> >>>>
> >>>> One of the main reasons I bought a laptop with an i7 processor was
> >>>> to speed simulations.  Is this wasted on LTspice or am I doing
> >>>> something wrong?
> >>>>
> >>> I think it saves the waveforms to a file as it goes along
> >>> simulating. Where you the one who complained about your hdd being
> >>> slow in an earlier thread? maybe try running the sim from an ext usb
> >>> stick. if that helps it's definitely the hdd.
> >>>
> >> I'd start with a ramdisk and see then.  USB sticks are glacial compared
> >> with real flash drives.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
>> >> Phil Hobbs
> >
>> > Try this one. 32 seconds on my new Dell. Runs about 25% CPU.
>
>> Less than 15 sec on an HP flaptop (ZBook G3 i7...) with 12% of one cpu.
>> Slower and busier with a plot updating.
>
> -- 
>> Grizzly H.

>That is really good!

>* LTspice Alternate Solver          33.129 seconds
>* LTspice normal solver             22.392 seconds
>* LTspice normal solver with .save  13.306 seconds
>* NGSPICE                            9.660 seconds
>* NGSPICE with .save                 9.002 seconds

OK, I have now ran the example posted by John at the top of this thread. Is 
this the one that has been run here?

If so, the speed problem is trivial.

The tran statement is

.tran 0 20m 10n uic

This runs in about 15 secs on my laptop in LTSpice.

However.....

If you right click on the tran line in LTSpice and remove the max time step 
entry, to let LT does what it does, it runs in < 1/2 sec, probably even 100 
ms. Its just zooms through, so difficult to tell.

As I keep mentioning, those that use Spice, should take the trouble to at 
least learn the most trivial, elementary basics of it.

You all need to understand that the max time step, if used, must be set with 
some modicum of rationality. Dah...

Like, 10ns in 20us is 2,000 points per cycle. Typically, you only need 20 or 
so, depending on how jaggered you want the waveform.



-- Kevin Aylward
http://www.anasoft.co.uk - SuperSpice
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/ee/index.html

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