An Introduction to Power Supply Simulations with SIMPLIS

by Christophe Basso - Future Electronics A simulation engine is a convenient and powerful tool when designing switching power supplies. If many simulation engines are available nowadays, few can deliver all the needed information to design the entire circuit: SPICE is a valuable assistant but it is prone to convergence issues and has difficulties with long-run PFC simulations. Besides, you need to resort to an equivalent small-signal model to explore a compensation strategy to close the feedback loop safely. If this is easy for the basic switching cells, the exercise complicates when no average model exists, like in the LLC converter case, for instance. SIMPLIS, on the other hand, builds on a different simulation engine and lets you simulate at a quicker speed than SPICE. Furthermore, it can extract the small-signal response of any switching converter. This seminar offers an introduction to how SIMPLIS operates compared to SPICE and how it can improve your design cycle in control loop design. This seminar targets switching power supply designers and requires an intermediate background in simulation.