Each element in the circuit is a device instance specified by an instance line that contains:

• the element instance name,
• the circuit nodes to which the element is connected,
• and the values of the parameters that determine the electrical characteristics of the element.

The first letter of the element instance name specifies the element type. The format for the ngspice element types is given in the following manual chapters. In the rest of the manual, the strings XXXXXXX, YYYYYYY, and ZZZZZZZ denote arbitrary alphanumeric strings.

For example, a resistor instance name must begin with the letter R and can contain one or more characters. Hence, R, R1,** **RSE, ROUT, and R3AC2ZY are valid resistor names. Details of each type of device are supplied in a following section 3. Table 2.1 lists the element types available in ngspice, sorted by their first letter.

Table 2.1: ngspice element types