I think the option should be "flexbalance=yes"

This option is currently in "early adopter" status - and needs some other magic to enable it. You should contact Cadence (via your account manager most likely) if you need to evaluate it. The reason for doing this is to control access during the initial release to ensure we are able to support customers properly.

I believe it is due for full release towards the end of the year.

I will not talk more about this option, as that is also something that we want to do in a controlled fashion - so contact your account manager for more details (or customer support who should be able to arrange this for you).

Regards,

Andrew.

Sheldon, you beat me to it. I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks now, and didn't get around to it...

Anyway, the news is as Sheldon says - "Flexible Balance" - the first step of which is to allow the choice of a harmonic balance algorithm as an alternative to the shooting algorithm in pss, qpss and envlp analyses - is available in MMSIM60 USR2. The UI for this is available in IC5141 USR3 - which is due for release on 14th December (although there is partial support for this in IC5141 USR2 and later by doing setenv CDS_SPECTRERF_FBENABLE 1 - USR3 avoids the need for the env var).

What's nice about this is that the setup is the same as for pss and qpss pretty much - the small signal analyses are also the same (except you don't have the ability to do strobed or sampled small signal analyses, since there's no time reference with harmonic balance).

You would use pss for single tone harmonic balance simulations, and qpss for multi tone harmonic balance simulations.

The benefit of harmonic balance is going to be for linear and weakly non-linear circuits. For circuits requiring lots of harmonics (e.g. dividers, switching circuits, circuits with considerable distortion), you are going to be better off using the shooting algorithms for pss and qpss.

The good thing is that you have a choice, all in the same simulator.

Regards,

Andrew.