Electronics Design Tool

[pdalek]

When designing some new gadget, like a PWM controller for a dew heater or sensor cooler, it helps to be able to reliably simulate function and performance.
A good free software tool is LTspice from Linear Technology http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/

It is well maintained version of the Spice simulator. It comes with a library containing many common components. Most component manufacturers provide Spice models which are easy to load into the LTspice library.
There is a users group http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LTspice/info which can provide help and has a library of circuit ideas.

Other free Spice versions exist. A few are described in the Electronics Design article http://electronicdesign.com/analog-amp-mixed-signal/free-downloadable-spice-tools-capture-and-simulate-analog-circuits
There is much information on the web to assist in learning Spice.

[gary]

SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) has played an important
part in the electronics industry since the mid 70's and it has an Australian connection.

The program was originally developed at the University of Berkeley by Laurence
Nagel under the direction of Professor Donald Pederson.

A brilliant Australian, Rich Newton, was working on his master's degree in Electrical
Engineering at the University of Melbourne between 1973 and 1975 and he
had a fortuitous meeting with Pederson. Whilst still a student at Melbourne,
Newton made significant contributions to the development of SPICE and he
joined Pederson in 1975.

Newton continued working on circuit simulation at Berkeley as a Ph.D student
and was hired there upon finishing his doctorate in 1978.

His brilliant intellect saw him go from assistant professor in 1978 to associate
professor in 1982, to full professor by 1985, by which time he was only 34 years old.
By 2000, he was dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Berkeley.

He provided a major impetus to the creation of the Electronic Design Automation
(EDA) industry and helped found the companies which were to become
industry giants, Synopsys and Cadence.

He had a long list of lifetime achievements and was a major motivator in Silicon
Valley who spearheaded many initiatives at universities and in industry.

Newton was a strong advocate of promoting women in engineering and he worked
tirelessly on a program to help industry, academia and government recruit, retain and
develop women leaders in high technology careers.

Unfortunately Newton died of pancreatic cancer in January 2007 at age 55.

Orville Schell, UC Berkeley dean of the Graduate School of Journalism and
a close family friend of Newton's, said Newton "was one of those most rare
of men who was as kind and collegial as he was intelligent, energetic and competitive.
His death leaves an emptiness of indescribable proportions."

Obituary -
http://coe.berkeley.edu/news-center/newton/newton-campus-obituary.html

A six minute touching video tribute to the memory of Rich Newton, a great Australian -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K-z-f5x96A