spicecmp 5.0.0

Spice Models and Results Comparisons

SpiceCmp

A Python library for making comparisons between Spice-class simulators.

Running

SpiceCmp's primary object of comparison is the CompareMe (names, we know), which includes two "PDK plus simulator combinations" (PdkSimCombos), DUTs for comparison, and comparison conditions:

@dataclass
class CompareMe:
    """ Pair of Pdk-Simulator Combos to be Compared. 
    One always uses spectre, and the other always uses xyce. 
    
    Exposes two primary methods, both of which operate over a list of `TestCase`s: 

    * `run` netlists and runs the test-case simulations, as well as it can. 
    * `compare` gathers the results of each `TestCase`, compares them measurement-by-measurement, creates and saves a summary table. 
    """

    # The PDK + Simulator combinations
    spectre: PdkSimCombo
    xyce: PdkSimCombo

    # Comparison name, for labeling and run-directory naming
    name: str

    # DUTs for comparison
    xtors: List[MosModel]
    ro_cells: List[Callable]

    # Other shared data for comparison
    tempers: List[int]
    corners: List[Corner]

Each CompareMe has two primary API methods:

• run generates netlists and invokes simulation
• compare collects simulation results, runs post-processesing, and collates results into a summary table

Both take as their sole argument a list of TestCases. Each test-case includes the test conditions (e.g. temperature, process corner) and a shared Test object:

@dataclass
class TestCase:
    """ # Test Case 
    Combination of a `Test`, and the conditions under which it is run. """

    test: Test  # Reference to the parent `Test`
    dut: Any  # Device under test, or generator thereof
    corner: Corner  # PVT Corner
    temper: int  # Temperature

@dataclass
class Test:
    """ # Simulation Comparison Test """

    name: str  # Test Name
    run_func: Callable  # Run-Function
    meas_func: Callable  # Measurement-Manipulation Function

Each Test, in turn, is principally comprised of two functions:

• A run_func which produces a simulatable DUT and invokes simulation, and
• A meas_func which post-processes results which come back from said simulation

The post-processing measurement functions (meas_funcs) operate on solely on Spice measurement data. Measurements are typically mappings from string measurement-names to scalar, numeric result values. The required signature for each meas_func is therefore:

def meas_func(inp: Dict[str, float]) -> Dict[str, float]:
    """ Convert a "raw" input measurement-dictionary to post-processed form. """

In Python typing notation, the type of each meas_func is therefore:

meas_func: Callable[[Dict[str, float]], Dict[str, float]]

Run-functions take as their sole argument a TestCaseRun, the combination of a TestCase, PDK, and simulator to run it against, along with other metadata.

@dataclass
class TestCaseRun:
    """ # Test Case Run
    Execution of a `TestCase` with a particular PDK & simulator. """

    testcase: TestCase
    pdk: Pdk
    simulator: Simulator
    parentdir: Path
    errormode: ErrorMode

Their signature takes a TestCaseRun as input and returns nothing:

def run_func(run: TestCaseRun) -> None:
    """ Execute the `TestCaseRun` """

And again in typing module terms, run-functions are of type:

run_func: Callable[["TestCaseRun"], None]

Comparison Results

Results for each TestCase-measurement combination are collated into a MeasComparison including summary information about the test, conditions, and DUT.

@dataclass
class MeasComparison:
    """ Comparison of a Measurement in one of our Tests. 

    Serves as the row-type for the comparison table. 
    Yes, these field-names are non-Pythonic, 
    but they are designed to be nice header-fields in a table. """

    Test: str  # Test/ Test-Bench
    Dut: str  # Device Under Test
    Corner: str  # PVT Corner
    Temper: int  # Temperature
    Measurement: str  # Measurement Name

    Xyce: float  # Xyce Result
    Spectre: float  # Spectre Result
    Diff: float  # Difference (divided by average)

CompareMe.compare also generally saves the combined set of these MeasComparisons to a tabular CSV-format file, with column-names equal to the field-names of MeasComparison. An example such result:

Test,   Dut,        Corner, Temper, Measurement,    Xyce,           Spectre,        Diff
MosIv,  NMOS_STD,   TT,     -25,    idsat,          0.0005419505,   0.000541951,    -9.225930586166412e-07
MosIv,  NMOS_STD,   FF,     -25,    idsat,          0.0006205647,   0.000620565,    -4.834305391191293e-07
# ...

Note the Diff field of each comparison is relative: it reports the difference between the two simulator results, divided by their average value.

Development

To set up a dev install:

pip install -e ".[dev]"