LTSpice vs Micro-cap. There both free now, whats the difference?

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The uC lib contains several VDMOS in the DN2530 series from Supertex. They can be found under MC12/library/supertex.lib but there's no subcircuit for a general VDMOS.

I need the VDMOS model for simulations using lateral MOSFETs 20N20/20P20. The spice model for them use the VDMOS and the only alternatives I've seen is LTspice or Superspice. But I'm used to work with MC12.
 
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I need the VDMOS model for simulations using lateral MOSFETs 20N20/20P20. The spice model for them use the VDMOS and the only alternatives I've seen is LTspice or Superspice. But I'm used to work with MC12.

Lateral MOS is available and the models (see pic) are very good, to the extent that amps using the 20P20 show a quirk, absent with the Hitachi 2SJ160.
 

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Thanks! I was looking for VDMOS, but the devices ARE there :)

I just got Superspice up and running with VDMOS Models. Mayby I should compare the results between MC12 and Superspice. Could be interesting.

My pleasure! An interesting issue to investigate regards the difference between N- and P- versions of the 20x20: for lowest distortion in an amp where they're used as followers, uC12 suggests that the P requires a 470R gate resistor.
 
Hi Edmond
I don't agree. When using the Tian probe in MC10 you have to use the stepping function in the AC analysis to step the "probe". In MC12 you can use the Stability analysis instead of the AC analysis and choose between Tian and Middlebrook analysis and use the stepping function to step all other variables in nested loops. In my opinion that is a step in the right direction.

Stein

Yes, that and lot of other things are automated in MC.
If you need some coding for special functions, you can do it also but not like in LT spice, everything is overcomplicated for my taste...
 
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Yes, that and lot of other things are automated in MC.
If you need some coding for special functions, you can do it also but not like in LT spice, everything is overcomplicated for my taste...

MC continues to be updated, the last version allows faster placing of components. Right-click a component on the parts menu and choose one of its 8 possible positions. For me, drawing a diagram with MC is faster than with pen and paper.

The automated functions like THD, IMD (useful for RF too) are enough for more than 99% of my requirements and 100% for audio - for instance DC analysis provides temp stability and with AC analysis you can get input noise in dBv/(SQR(Hz) and compare with other topologies and or input parts.
 
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I downloaded micro-cap 12 on my Ubuntu 18.04 Linux machine. It appears to run under wine (Windows emulator) but various of the demos crash, in particular the Demos/Fourier and Demos/General. Has anyone else tried to run the demos with Linux/Wine?

Quite a few years ago I was using an ASUS A7J (32 bit machine) under Linux wine and all MC demos were running OK. The issue might be with the 64 bit version of MC: try running the demos with 32 bit version.
 
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I had the same problems with the demos with both the 32-bit and 64-bit and with micro-cap version 11 and version 12.


The problems could be with wine. I will try the demos running using an older version of wine with Fedora Linux.

It's also possible that versions 11 and 12 have a different dependency on Windows. On the 32 bit Ubuntu machine I was using version 9 and you couldn't see a difference re functionality (including speed) between wine and XP.
 
I liked MC for one thing: it is the best didactic tool maybe. But otherwise it is compatible with nothing, it is not possible to export a MC netlist into a regular spice/pspice netlist or into another schematic format or a pcb/gerber format. Which imply it's usage is very limited. It is too bad because both its schematic and analysis are powerful and easy to use.
 
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