SLiCAP Version 3.2 release notes

1. SLiCAP Version 3.2 is compatible with previous versions. The use of the instruction object for creating instructions, however, is deprecated and no longer described in this documentation.

2. Version 3.2.4 has a KiCAD library symbol, SLiCAP CMOS18 sub circuits, and extra math functions for the design of a feedback amplifiers’ MOS input stage based on its noise performance.

   • KiCAD symbol: XM_noisyNullor

   • Use with SLiCAP library sub circuits: MN18_noisyNullor and MP18_noisyNullor for PMOS and NMOS, respectively

   • SLiCAP functions:

     • ‘integrate_monomial_coeffs() see integrate_monomial_coeffs.

     • ‘integrated_monomial_coeffs() see integrated_monomial_coeffs.

     • ‘monomial_coeffs2html() see monomial_coeffs2html.

3. From version 3.2.3 the analysis time for large circuits has been considerably reduced. By default, two methods will be applied:

   1. Reduction of the circuit through elimination of all independent voltage sources that are not used as signal source or current detector.

      This circuit reduction can be switched off by setting

      reduce_circuit = False
      

      in the [math] section of the SLiCAP.ini* file in the project directory

   2. Reduction of the size of the MNA matrix before calculation of the determinant, for matrices comprising Laplace expressions.

      This matrix reduction can be switched off by setting

      reduce_matrix = False
      

      in the [math] section of the SLiCAP.ini* file in the project directory

4. KiCAD is the preferred schematic capture program for SLiCAP version 3.2. From version 3.2.3 Inkscape is no longer needed for creating image-size svg and pdf files of KiCAD schematics. SLiCAP uses dedicated Python scrips for this purpose.

5. The function ENG(<number>, scaleFactors=False) has been added to write numbers in enginering notation. It is used in the following functions:

   • elementData2html

   • params2html

   • expr2html

   • eqn2html

   • pz2html

   • specs2html

   If scalefactors = True, scale factors from \(y=10^{-24}\cdots P=10^{15}\) are used. If scalefactors = False and eng_notation = True, engineering notation will be used (powers of 10 are an integer multiple of 3).

   Application of this function is defined in the [display] section of the SLiCAP.ini file in the project folder. Default setting are:

   scalefactors = False
   eng_notation = True
   

6. The SLiCAP.ini files in the ~/SliCAP/ folder and in the project folder are automatically updated in case in which they are corrupted or incomplete.