11 October 2011

Agilent’s latest RF design and 3D EM simulation platforms enhance multi-technology design and speed simulation

Agilent Technologies Inc of Santa Clara, CA, USA has announced new versions of its Advanced Design System and Electromagnetic Professional software.

ADS 2011.10, the latest release of Agilent’s flagship RF design software, and EMPro 2011.11, the firm’s updated 3D modeling and simulation platform, both feature enhancements to further speed and improve RF design and verification.

Agilent is demonstrating ADS 2011.10 and EMPro 2011.11, along with other products and services for wireless communication, in booth G301 at this week’s European Microwave Week (EuMW2011) in Manchester, UK (11-13 October). The new software releases will also be on display at the IEEE Compound Semiconductor IC Symposium (CSICS 2011) in Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA next week (16-19 October).

ADS is electronic design automation (EDA) software for RF, microwave and signal-integrity applications. ADS 2011.10 provides users with continued enhancements for RF printed circuit board (PCB), MMIC and multi-technology design, including:

• A design documentation notebook that makes it easy to create and share all or selected views of schematics, layout and data displays, and generate PDF and PostScript outputs files.

• The ability to more easily create native air bridges in ADS layout and the substrate editor for Momentum and finite-element method (FEM) 3D EM simulation.

• RF power amplifier design and analysis improvements to the Load Pull Design Guide.

• An easier multi-technology EM assembly simulation setup (which comes from the ability to use a single substrate definition for both Momentum and FEM simulators), an improved user interface, and a new FEM multi-threaded iterative solver that delivers a 2x speed improvement.

• Improved PCB interoperability stemming from a more effective transfer of PCB via Pad stacks and ODB++ import improvements.

ADS 2011.10 also now supports Agilent’s new 89601B Vector Signal Analysis software, and offers re-driver/re-timer models for the HSD channel simulator, as well as native ADS 2011 process design kit (PDK) documentation and a sample design kit. Agilent has also improved ease of use and error detection for Desktop LVS.

Tightly integrated with Agilent’s ADS, EMPro is used to create 3D models and analyze electrical performance of packages, connectors, antennas and other RF components. The EMPro 2011.11 release builds on advances made available in 2011.07, introducing key improvements to the FEM simulator:

• A fast FEM iterative solver that provides an additional 2x speed improvement (on top of the 2x speed-up already realized in the 2011.07 release) for simulations that include internal ports.

• User-defined passive loads capability that allows users to include ideal passive loads directly in a FEM simulation to represent matching circuits and surface-mount components. (The loads are defined in the EM setup environment, which consists of common series and parallel RLC network topologies, enabling accurate field visualization results and radiation patterns that take into account passive loads.)

• A fast, two-dimensional port solver that simplifies FEM simulation port setup, allowing users to quickly and easily determine the number of modes, reference impedance and optimum impedance line placement.

ADS 2011.10 is expected to ship in late October. EMPro 2011.11 will be available for download in late October. Pricing for the ADS and EMPro environments start at $8000 and $7000, respectively.

Tags: Agilent RF design 3D EM simulation

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