UPC EETAC Bachelor's Degree in Telecommunications Systems and in Network Engineering EEL

 

  

Installing and using Proteus-ISIS

Lab 1.1

Computer simulation (virtual electronics laboratory) based on SPICE algorithms 

1. Installation

Proteus is a virtual laboratory, a SPICE based electrical simulator. Its advantage for our course is that you can simulate both analogue and digital circuits based on classic components and also microcontrollers (Chapter 3 from P9).

You as EETAC student are encouraged to download and install the current professional version in your home or portable computer and run our cloud licence.

Proteus

Fig. 1. Software logo.

 

2. Example of a simple "flat" circuit

Capture a logic circuit in a Proteus project, and run simulations with the aim of obtaining its truth table. These are a pair of circuits for practising: Circuit P , Circuit Q .

This is a simple flat (all the design at the same sheet of paper) circuit Comb_circuit.pdsprj in LS-TTL technology. It can be adapted for other similar projects. This is the same Comb_circuit.pdsprj in CMOS technology. 

NOTE: IN CSD do not start a new simulation project from scratch but copy from the many examples given and adapt them to your new circuits.

circuit

Fig. 2. A simple circuit that you can use as a template to adapt it to your design. The latest tutorials form the company.

This is another circuit Circuit_W.pdsprj as an example that were copied and adapted from the circuit above.

Scripting language Easy HDL. Sometimes it is a good idea to automate the generation of stimulus signals. The example Comb_circuit.pdsprj in Fig. 3 shows you how to use the internal scripting language Easy HDL for implementing digital generators. You can also use the logic analyser instrument to observe the truth table in time

Easy HDL

Fig. 3. Digital generator implemented using the Easy HDL scripting language and signal visualisation in the logic analyser.

Important NOTE: when printing for written reports, never use black background, use write background to save printer ink as shown below:

Printing analyser results

Interfacing real components. The circuit in Fig. 4 is another version  Circuit_W_real.pdsprj where you can add to the digital electronic circuit Chip1 some buttons, switches, LEDs and even relays and motors. Play with the circuit and pay attention to the real voltages and currents that represent '0' and '1' symbolic logic values.

real circuit icon

Fig. 4. Another digital circuit including real components (click the picture to zoom) to interface buttons and power loads.

In Fig. 5, there is the detail of a power driver based on a simple bipolar junction transistor (BJT) and an electomechanical relay.

Motor driver

Fig. 5.

 Logic gates manage uW of power, but conveniently amplified, can easily drive electric loads. In this example a kW motor is switch ON and OFF.

 

3. Example of a hierarchical design

Adder_subtractor_8bit.pdsprj occupies multiple structured hierarchical sheets of paper. Such top-down circuit organisation that will allow us to build large circuits will be studied from P3 sketching schematics and translating them to VHDL. 

structural

Fig. 6. The subcircuit block allows packing circuits in boxes or "entities"that can be used many times in the same schematic.

 

This example can be takes as a hierarchical template circuit to copy and adapt.

 

4. Other similar tutorial exercises on Proteus schematics

- This is an example of Hex_7seg_decoder.pdsprj solved using logic gates and drawn in Proteus.

- This is the same Hex_7seg_decoder.pdsprj solved using a simple programmable logic device (SPLD) 22V10. Thus, the circuit pdsprj and sPLD configuration file jed have to be placed in the same folder. The sPLD configuration jed file is obtained after the synthesis process using VHDL language (plan B) and an EDA tool such as Lattice ispLEVER Classic. 

- This is the same project Circuit_W solved with another very powerful and full-featured SPICE simulator: MultiSim from National Instruments. As a UPC student you can download the software bundle Multisim (simulator) and Ultiboard (PCB design) for education and obtain a licence. These are instructions if you are interested in such EDA tools for other EETAC subjects.

Circuit_W
 

Fig. 7. Multisim circuit example.

 

Other materials of interest 

- ARDUINO board in Proteus simulator. This is an Example_Arduino.pdsprj  project including the simulation of Arduino circuits. It generates a programmable PWM waveform. 

Circuit with Arduino

Fig. 8. Example of a circuit based on Arduino running in Proteus.