Distortion analysis of nonlinear circuits is very important for designing analog integrated circuits and communication systems. In this letter, we propose an efficient frequency-domain approach for calculating frequency response curves, which is based on HB (harmonic balance) method combining with ABMs (Analog Behavior Models) of Spice. Firstly, nonlinear devices such as bipolar transistors and MOSFETs are transformed into the HB device modules executing the Fourier transformations. Using these modules, the determining equation of the HB method is formed by the equivalent sine-cosine circuit in the schematic form or net-list. It consists of the coupled resistive circuits, so that it can be efficiently solved by the DC analysis of Spice. In our algorithm, we need not to derive any troublesome circuit equations, and any kinds of the transformations.

We propose here a fully Spice-oriented design algorithm of op-amps for attaining the maximum gains under low power consumptions and assigned slew-rates. Our optimization algorithm is based on a well-known steepest descent method combining with nonlinear programming. The algorithm is realized by equivalent RC circuits with ABMs (analog behavior models) of Spice. The gradient direction is decided by the analysis of sensitivity circuits. The optimum parameters can be found at the equilibrium point in the transient response of the RC circuit. Although the optimization time is much faster than the other design tools, the results might be rough because of the simple transistor models. If much better parameter values are required, they can be improved with Spice simulator and/or other tools.

We propose here a time-domain shooting algorithm for calculating the steady-state responses of nonlinear RF circuits containing parasitic elements that is based on both a modified Newton and a secant methods. Bipolar transistors and MOSFETs in ICs have small parasitic capacitors among their terminals. We can not neglect them because they will gives large effects to the shooting algorithm at the high frequency. Since our purpose is to develop a user friendly simulator, we mainly take into account the relatively large normal capacitors such as coupling and/or by-pass capacitors and so on, because the parasitic capacitors are usually smaller and contained in the device models. We have developed a very simple simulator only using the fundamental tools of SPICE, which can be applied to relatively large scale ICs, efficiently.

We consider oscillators consisting of a reactance circuit and a negative resistor. They may happen to have multi-mode oscillations around the anti-resonant frequencies of the reactance circuit. This kind of oscillators can be easily synthesized by setting the resonant and anti-resonant frequencies of the reactance circuits. However, it is not easy to analyze the oscillation phenomena, because they have multiple oscillations whose oscillations depend on the initial guesses. In this paper, we propose a Spice-oriented solution algorithm combining the harmonic balance method with Newton homotopy method that can find out the multiple solutions on the homotopy paths. In our analysis, the determining equations from the harmonic balance method are given by modified equivalent circuit models of "DC," "Cosine" and "Sine" circuits. The modified circuits can be solved by a simulator STC (solution curve tracing circuit), where the multiple oscillations are found by the transient analysis of Spice. Thus, we need not to derive the troublesome circuit equations, nor the mathematical transformations to get the determining equations. It makes the solution algorithms much simpler.