Electrical design inspection: a methodology for using circuit simulation in the design and development of electronic power supplies

The authors present an electrical design inspection (EDI) methodology that combines advanced power circuit simulation techniques and RISC (reduced instruction set computing) workstation hardware to use simulation in the day-to-day design of electronic power supplies. This methodology makes use of circuit simulation to detect design faults in electronic power supplies and prevent them from propagating further in the product realization process. A hierarchy of inspections which form the basis of EDI methodology, is introduced. The methodology has been embedded in a prototype electrical design inspection system which has been tested on a Sun Sparcserver 4/490 dedicated to circuit simulation. The power of this methodology has been illustrated by its application to a self-oscillating variable-frequency DC-DC power converter with peak current control. It is demonstrated that EDIS can automatically execute inspections requiring an accurate determination of the steady-state solution of the circuit, and process these results. The steady-state accelerator capability within the SIMPLIS circuit simulator has made it possible to achieve this in an unprecedentedly short CPU time