In Bed With Tina, The Hungarian
by Paul McGoldrick
Bigger businesses are usually fairly aloof when it comes to dealing
with the smaller guy. In our electronics arena, for example, bigger vendors
try to avoid talking directly to a customer when the sales volumes involved
are low, unless there is a future potential that will keep that vendor as
the main supplier because of its early assistance.
Although still a fairly small operation, DesignSoft -- based in Budapest, Hungary -- came to the notice of Texas Instruments' engineers because of a simulation program that DesignSoft had produced called TINA. One of the engineers downloaded a trial version (which stops operating after a period of time) and the software became the talk of the cafeteria with individuals buying the TINA PRO version from the company. Anything that improves on SPICE -- and is easier to use -- is always worth looking at.
analogZONE became aware of TINA through publishing the TechNotes of TI's Tim Green covering -- in an extremely novel but thoroughly educational manner -- op amp stability questions, and answers. With none of the classical textbook approach that drives electronics-101 students nuts ("academic" virtual grounds and circuit schematics that confuse the heck out of you are my least favorites), Tim is attracting a fan following that is delightful to track. (Parts One through Five of the planned 15 parts can be downloaded from the latest installment, here.)
The schematics and simulations for this series are produced with TINA.
[DesignSoft has other software as well. A package called Edison is a multimedia lab for explaining electronics; Newton is another multimedia lab for explaining mechanics; MyHouse is a 3-D house design package with animation and a walk-through capability. The company also produces a professional architecture package; a crime/traffic accident reconstruction solution; and a simulation package for the HP 200LX palm computer. Their products have been translated into over eighteen languages.]
In an unusual move, and kudos to management in the High-Performance Analog Group, TI has teamed up with DesignSoft to offer TINA-TI, a scaled down version of TINA PRO. The node capabilities of the TI version are probably more than most designers will ever need, but if you ever needed to expand you can always spend $360 on the PRO version.
The TINA-TI version, which is Windows-based, allows the design, simulation and analysis of analog circuits with two IC macromodels. Loaded with the software is a large library of example circuits and macromodels of amplifiers (TI products, of course) and more will be added.
Did I mention that the TINA-TI version is available free from TI? You'll need about 20 Mbyte of space for the download.
Seeing the examples of TINA-TI working it is easy to conclude that the program is much more intuitive than any of the versions of SPICE I have ever played with. Apart from the ac and dc simulation capabilities TINA-TI also provides noise, transient and Fourier analyses. It also supplies virtual test equipment in the form of a signal analyzer, oscilloscope, function generator, X-Y recorder and multimeter -- and they look like the real thing. I was never heavily into circuit design (systems was much more my thing), but I would love to see both TINA and Edison get into the classroom. And the schematic capabilities of the program are incredibly good, and simple, written by people who obviously understand circuits, not electricians with aspirations. analogZONE has no problem putting Microsoft aside and will use TINA-TI exclusively in the future for schematics -- I put together a schematic in about ten minutes that would have taken me at least an hour with any other tool. And I haven't found any Windows application yet that you cannot just paste TINA-produced materials directly into.
What do the two parties get out of this deal? DesignSoft gets huge exposure for its product and the strong likelihood that other vendors will see how easy its product is to use and come to separate deals with their own macromodels loaded. TI crosses a barrier that has been in place for years with the possibility that, by making it easier, it will persuade more design engineers to simulate their circuits before they build them. That artificial barrier has been created by those who still want to persuade designers that analog is a voodoo art form that only a few can attain. Simulating will result in fewer telephone calls and e-mails for the application engineers, allowing them time to tackle other, less tangible, problems.
TI was kind enough to provide me with a copy of TINA-TI on a USB Flashdisk
so I didn't have to download it. That is….you didn't want it back,
guys?