Xyce — The Complete Guide: A Parallel SPICE Simulator for Very Large Circuits

Xyce is an open-source circuit simulator developed at Sandia National Laboratories in the US to solve one problem: circuits too large for ordinary SPICE. Instead of one processor, it spreads the solution across many processors or a compute cluster.

Xyce — Parallel Analog Circuit Simulator

Sandia National Laboratories

Sandia National Laboratories’ SPICE simulator, built for very large circuits and parallel execution.

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What you get

Parallel computing — runs on a multi-core machine or a cluster, for circuits with millions of devices.
Analyses — DC, AC, transient, harmonic balance and sensitivity.
Standard models — familiar device models and broad compatibility with SPICE netlist syntax.
Uncertainty studies — parameter sweeps and statistical analyses.
Library use — it can be embedded in other programs and coupled simulations.

Who it suits

Xyce has no schematic editor of its own: it reads a netlist and produces data. It suits chip designers, researchers and anyone already working with netlists and scripts. If you want a graphical interface, you can run it from Qucs-S. For circuits of ordinary size, ngspice is simpler and entirely sufficient.

Related tools

For everyday simulation and inside KiCad — ngspice. For a graphical interface on top of Xyce — Qucs-S. For switching power supplies with a rich component library — LTspice.