Numerical effects in time-domain simulations of electronic circuits - a reminder

This paper reminds the analog designer of the possible stability problems encountered when simulating strongly resonating circuits in the time domain. The warping of circuit pole positions in different numerical integration algorithms is reviewed, and it is shown that all time domain simulation algorithms suffer from this effect, including Simulink, time-domain steady-state, and a harmonic balance tailored to the needs of designing large RFICs.