Re: gEDA: gaf - Spice question

[Wojciech Kazubski <wk-at-NOSPAMire_dot_pw_dot_edu_dot_pl>]

Hi All!

I am thinking about the new spice backends for gnetlist. The current backend 
is (hardly!) usable for IC designers. Some times ago a improvement was 
proposed, but it was not implemented due to compatibility reasons.
If this is the major problem, the current spice backend could be left 
unchanged and new spice backend (or two) should be written.

I have almost finished a backend for IC designers which can use all modelling 
capabilities of spice3f5 but it needs some new attributes (as "area" and 
"model").

The backend for circuit designers should be quite different. The active 
devices should be modelled as _subcircuits_ instead of (or as an alternative 
to) the device model. Thus modelling of devices such as opamps, transistors 
with case parasitics, dual gate mosfets... will be possible.
The main problem is with linking the proper model to the gnetlis output. The 
device manufacturers deliver their models in variety of formats (sometimes 
internally incoherent) so it is difficult to extract them.

Is it legal to to extract a model from, say Philips or Siemens, homepage, 
then modify it and add to a geda library?


W. Kazubski