Analog circuit simulation library?

Question

I'm working on a genetic programming tool and I'd like to evolve analog circuits. Can anyone suggest a library or tool or even a reference for hooking my GP code up? I just need some way to have something like SPICE evaluate the circuits that are created by my code. I've seen reference to plain text representations of the circuits (netlists) which are used by tools like SPICE. I'd like to know if there is a better way to connect to a simulator than to run it and pass the netlist on standard input. My code is written in C, in case you're wondering what sort of library I'm interested in.

Nelidanelie

Answer 1

SPICE is the reference electronics simulator.

I think it's mostly written in Forth, these days mostly using a Forth-to-C translator. I'd try to integrate it simply reading its text output to pick the values you want to {min/max}imize

Giulia

Right, and I'm asking about hooking it or something like it up to an existing C Genetic Programming app. In particular it would be nice if I could link in a library and call a function to evaluate a circuit. – Nelidanelie

I think that you mean FORTRAN. Spice and Spice 2 used FORTRAN; Spice (and descendants) 3 use C. See here embedded.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/downloads/spice. – Sawbuck

Answer 2

Modelica has various circuit analysis capabilities.

Retuse

That's an interesting package and one that I've never heard of. I don't know if it will do what I'm trying to do, but I'll check it out and possibly use it for something else. – Nelidanelie