5 MPLAB® Mindi™ Analog Simulator

Simulating electronic circuits can save development time and resources by reducing design iterations. Costly design errors can be found at an early stage and corrected without much effort. Simulations also have an important learning aspect where the operation of a circuit can quickly be characterized and understood.

The MPLAB® Mindi™ Analog Simulator is a comprehensive tool for analog circuit design and analysis. The tool uses a SIMetrix/SIMPLIS simulation environment, that can cover a very wide set of possible simulation needs. It has an easy-to-use interface, fast simulation times, and an ever-growing library of models and application schematics. Available model libraries include: Operational amplifiers, active filter circuits, MOSFET and motor drivers, power modules, LED drivers, switching regulators, generic switch, and passive components.

MPLAB® Mindi™ installs and runs locally. Once downloaded, no internet connection is required, and the simulation run-time is not dependent on a remotely located server. The result is fast, accurate analog circuit simulations. Applications that can greatly benefit from MPLAB® Mindi™ include:
  • Generation of BODE responses for active and passive filter systems
  • Evaluation of transient responses to a wide variety of input conditions
  • Generation of closed loop stability responses for control systems
  • Verification of slew rates and drive strengths through power drive or signal conditioning chains
  • Modeling the noise effects in signal conditioning or control systems
Figure 5-1. MPLAB® Mindi™ - Overview of Design Environment

The latest version of MPLAB® Mindi™ is available for download on the MPLAB® Mindi™ Analog Simulator product page.

Each described topology comes with a Mindi™ schematic and simulation, showcasing the configuration through a simple example. It also sets the premises for what is to be expected from the functional hardware configuration once the firmware has been programmed in the target device.