Simulation Probe Manager (New Feature Summary)

Altium Designer 17 features several Mixed Simulation enhancements, including the newly introduced Probe Manager. Configuring probed waveforms from the Probe Manager allows designers to display plots as desired without the need to manually add or modify waves post simulation, bringing added flexibility and control to mixed simulation. With the Probe Manager, designers can also use probes and active signals to select waveforms to display.

Profile View mode of the Probe Manager dialog.

Accessing the Probe Manager and other Mixed Simulation features requires having the Mixed Simulation software extension installed. The extension is included with your Altium Designer purchase; to install the it, select DXP » Extensions and Updates from the toolbar. From the Purchased tab, scroll down to Software Extensions and search for "Mixed Simulation." Click the button in the top right corner of the extension to install. Altium Designer must be restarted before the extension is available.

Access

The Probe Manager dialog is accessed by selecting Simulate » Probe Manager from the toolbar.

 
Basic View mode of the Probe Manager dialog.

Probes, and other Mixed Simulation tools used with the Probe Manager, can be accessed in the following ways:

• Through the Simulate menu on the toolbar.
• From the Mixed Sim toolbar. To open the toolbar, right-click in the toolbar next to Help select Mixed Sim to add the Mixed Sim toolbar to your workspace. The toolbar can float separately or you can drag and drop it into your actual toolbar.

Basic View

In this view of the Probe Manager, probes are listed with ability to turn them on/off for each simulation type. For AC analysis the Complex Function can be selected, with the addition of Bode Plot that will display both Magnitude and Phase. This is particularly useful for sweep type analyses where you can get multiple waveforms generated for each probed net and adding magnitude and phase for each one would be tedious. Errors are listed in the right hand column (for example, if only a single differential voltage probe has been placed or if the current probe is not on a pin).

Profile View