test&measurementZONE Products for the week of May 15, 2006

Agilent Technologies Says . . .
EMDS 2006A: 3-D Electromagnetic Simulation Software For RF/Microwave Designers
Electromagnetic Design System sets new standard for price-performance, integrates with EDA software design flow

Agilent Technologies Inc. introduced its Electromagnetic Design System (EMDS) for RF and microwave circuit designers. The Agilent EMDS is the leading performance tool for its price point, and integrates with Agilent's industry-leading RF and microwave circuit design and simulation flow.

"In January, we announced our investment in 3D EM simulation tools as part of a larger strategy to expand our high-frequency EDA offerings," said Jim McGillivary, general manager of Agilent's EEsof EDA division. "Today, we are right on schedule with our EMDS. We're very encouraged by the early positive response from both Advanced Design System and GENESYS customers to the technology and price point, and to our future direction that includes advanced levels of integration with all our circuit-design software tools."

Circuit designers have recognized the benefits of accounting for 3D EM effects when designs include passive structures such as component-level bond wires, connectors, packages and machined parts. Because the high-end 3D EM simulators on the market demand a much higher price than common circuit-simulation tools, RF and microwave engineers have often skipped the EM analysis step, relying instead on "best guesses" regarding 3D EM effects on circuit performance.

Agilent's EMDS provides a 3D EM solution at a price comparable with leading circuit-simulation tools, so more designers can afford to have it on their desktops. EMDS allows analysis and visualization of EM effects that provide insight into the design performance. Designers can use it to make informed decisions and adjustments before physical prototyping begins. This reduces or eliminates costly design iterations, and can save months in a typical product-development cycle.

This first release of the Agilent EMDS provides basic design-flow integration with Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS), allowing users to bring layout designs from ADS into EMDS for full 3D analysis. Agilent plans to include increasing levels of integration with ADS and with the company's GENESYS environment.

EN-Genius Says...

The gap between having tools available from vendors and getting them on your desktop is a Grand Canyon thing when it comes to management understanding, budget availability and an actual purchase. In the arena of RF/microwave, simulations (such as most of them are) rocket in price because the skill sets to design them are in the heads of people who have no problem finding really well paid jobs actually doing it. Agilent is bridging that canyon with the electromagnetic design system (EMDS) bringing 3-D simulation of EM to the desktop at a reasonable price.

The system has been designed to mate with Agilent's ADS by bringing layouts in for full analysis and the user requires little skill in the EM arena to take this integrated design tool and make a product ready for production on the first pass. It allows for arbitrary 3-D structures, miscellaneous conductors and dielectrics with field modelling and visualization; multi-I/O designs are simplified with no limit on the number of ports available. The system even allows for free-space boundary conditions to be set allowing for the modeling of antenna conditions and designing them better for the compromises between gain, polarization and beam shape and width.

The user will be able to design and understand the 3-D EM effects in transmission structures such as striplines, filters, couplers, adapters, antennas, connectors, diplexers and so on. The system also allows for the generation of S-parameters at matched 50-? conditions or in generalized and high-order terms.

This is a solution that is going to be widely adopted and will dynamically increase the pool of design engineers able to work in this arena, instead of the ifs-and-buts guessing of the past and present. No doubt Agilent will refine the software as time goes on, and the company is currently looking for qualified Beta testers for the system. If I was still active in RF I would have had my hat in the ring before writing this review!

With Beta testing now the EMDS 2006A is expected to ship in July 2006 with prices from $15,000.

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