Hidden oscillations in SPICE simulation of two-phase Costas loop with non-linear VCO

Simulation is widely used for analysis of Costas loop based circuits. However it may be a non-trivial task, because incorrect choice of integration parameters may lead to qualitatively wrong conclusions. In this work the importance of choosing appropriate parameters and simulation model is discussed. It is shown that hidden oscillations may not be found by simulation in SPICE, however it can be predicted by analytical methods.