Summary
● Electronic circuit simulation uses mathematical al- gorithms to duplicate real electronics circuits.
● Electronic circuit simulation allows the user to be- come part of the learning experience by engaging him or her in these tasks:
● Creating electronic circuits
● Studying the operation of the electronics circuit
● Evaluating the performance of the electronics circuit
● Electronic circuit simulation helps to improve cir- cuit performance under these conditions:
● When breadboarding is not possible
● When it is difficult to look at the internal signals
● When tooling is expensive for building a circuit
● An analog simulation uses the Berkeley SPICE modeling simulation, and digital uses Verilog or VHDL simulations.
● Multisim is an electronics schematic capture and simulation program by National Instrument.
● National Instrument’s Ultiboard takes the sche- matic diagram and makes a printed circuit board layout from it.
● Electronic engineers use Multisim for schematic capture, SPICE simulation, and to design elec- tronic circuits.
● Circuit Wizard combines schematic circuit design, circuit simulation, PCB design, and CAD/CAM fabrication of PCB.
● Circuit Wizard includes the following virtual instruments:
● Analog and digital multimeter
● Logic analyzer
● Oscilloscope
● Signal generator
● Wattmeter
● Productivity software includes the areas of word processing, presentation, desktop publishing, and spreadsheets.
● Word processing uses a word processor program for entering text, formatting, making revisions, and printing the final document.
● Presentation programs include a text editor, a process for entering and editing graphics and photos, and an arrangement for a slide show.
● A page layout program is used for desktop publishing and allows the combining of text and images on a page, manipulating the page elements
for creative layouts, and producing multipage documents easily.
● An illustration program uses vector graphics for resizing artwork.
● A photo editor works with photos and scanned images.
● Web design is used to create web pages to be ap- plied to a website on a server, with the home page identified as the index.
● A computer spreadsheet is used for inputting, ma- nipulating, organizing, and storing numbers and other data.