CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
16 August 2004
Product News
Optimal and AWR to Offer First 3D Full-Wave Electromagnetic Extraction Capability for Microwave and RFIC Designs
Optimal CorporationT and Applied Wave Research, Inc. (AWR®) announced the first commercially-available three-dimensional (3-D) full-wave electromagnetic (EM) extraction design flow. This AWR-Optimal methodology addresses complex signaling issues in wireless communications integrated circuit (IC) designs operating from one GHz to over 50 GHz.
Combining Optimal's O-WaveT product with AWR's Microwave Office® and Analog OfficeT design suites through the AWR EM SocketT interface, this new design flow enables microwave and radio-frequency (RF) designers to perform accurate 3-D full-wave EM simulation and parasitic extraction in order to verify the performance of entire chips before committing the designs to fabrication.
"The challenges facing designers of wireless products are quite substantial and require a software solution that is built on an open, standard-based software platform, allowing easy integration of the most capable, best-in-class tools to capture, synthesize, simulate, optimize, layout, extract, and verify designs in all domains," said James Spoto, AWR president and CEO. "This alliance is an excellent example of how AWR's unique, open, high-frequency design environment can integrate with Optimal's leading edge 3-D full-wave EM simulation tool to provide designers with a first-to-market, complete design flow solution."
Len Perham, chairman and CEO of Optimal, stated, "RFIC is a rapidly-growing area in the semiconductor industry. Our alliance with AWR provides customers in the microwave, MMIC and RFIC markets with cutting edge 3-D full-wave extraction capability. O-Wave's ability to accurately simulate lossy substrates with 10-times better performance than other tools provides designers with a powerful solution for efficiently analyzing and optimizing their designs." Perham concluded, "As technology alliance partners, AWR and Optimal demonstrate the ability of two vendors with leading-edge technology to collaborate successfully in order to provide intrinsic value to the customer, in this case, the microwave and RFIC designers who are encountering increasingly challenging circuit problems at the advanced semiconductor technology nodes."
Through the integrated AWR-Optimal EM flow, users can invoke Optimal's O-Wave solver from AWR's design environment. They can then transparently extract design and process information-such as geometry, materials, excitation, and loading conditions-of the RF circuit and pass that information to Optimal's O-Wave. O-Wave then automatically builds a 3-D finite element model and solves for the electrical and magnetic fields of the design. Upon completion of O-Wave's 3-D full wave EM simulation, O-Wave transparently feeds back frequency dependent solutions (such as E-fields and S/Y/Z-parameters) to the AWR design environment for further simulation and analysis.
The integrated EM flow enables high-frequency designers to analyze and optimize complex microwave and RFIC designs to ensure datasheet performance in the final product. Since O-Wave's computation speed and capacity is one order of magnitude higher than competing products on the market, the microwave designers can reduce design cycle time and achieve faster time to market for wireless communications products.
AWR worked with leading EM simulation companies to create the EM Socket interface, which interfaces with virtually any EM simulator and integrates third-party design tools into the AWR high-frequency design environment. By leveraging AWR's component object model (COM) architecture, the EM Socket provides a level of circuit-to-EM integration that goes well beyond traditional standards of interoperability, which typically use cumbersome file transfer methods. This open socket standard enables users to access multiple EM simulators, from a variety of vendors, without leaving the AWR design environment. The solution facilitates greater flexibility in design methodology while providing a common user interface.
The integration is free of charge to customers with valid maintenance contracts and will be available through both AWR and Optimal in the second half of Q3 2004. Both Optimal's O-Wave and AWR's design suites are available for Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP. For more information on product pricing and availability, contact: Optimal at sales@optimalcorp.com or 408-363-6300; and AWR at info@mwoffice.com or 310-726-3000. For product pricing and availability outside the U.S., contact either company or their respective local sales representatives. For more information about AWR and its products, please visit http://www.mwoffice.com or call 310-726-3000.
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