Mixed-signal simulation with the Simbus backplane

In this paper, the Simbus backplane is used in conjunction with SAVANT/TyVIS/WARPED, a parallel VHDL simulator, and Xyce, a parallel SPICE simulation engine, to model and simulate a mixed-signal ASIC-driven charging circuit simulation. In particular, the individual components of an airbag deployment system are described and modeled in the digital and analog domains. A VHDL-based microcontroller interface is designed to control an analog charging circuit based on accelerometer output. The accelerometer and charging circuit are modeled in SPICE and interactions between the two domains are established through the simbus backplane. The results of this study provide evidence of the implementation possibilities available with a mixed-signal system and demonstrate the feasibility of continuing work in multi-domain simulation.