EMDS for ADS Basics

Electromagnetic Design System (EMDS) for Advanced Design System (ADS) is a complete solution for electromagnetic simulation of arbitrarily-shaped, passive three-dimensional structures. EMDS for ADS makes full 3D EM simulation an attractive option for designers working with RF circuits, MMICs, PC boards, modules, and Signal Integrity applications. It provides the best price/performance, 3D EM simulator on the market, with a full 3D electromagnetic field solver, and fully automated meshing and convergence capabilities for modeling arbitrary 3D shapes such as bond wires and finite dielectric substrates.

EMDS in now integrated into ADS. Along with Momentum, this provides RF and microwave engineers access to some of the most comprehensive EM simulation tools in the industry. If you are unfamiliar with Advanced Design System, refer to the Drawing Tips.

Developed with the designer of high-frequency/high-speed circuits in mind, EMDS for ADS offers a powerful finite-element EM simulator that solves a wide array of applications with impressive accuracy and speed.

By combining fast solution times, efficient memory usage, and powerful display capabilities, EMDS for ADS delivers leading price/performance solution to complex high-frequency problems. EMDS for ADS users need very little background in electromagnetic field theory in order to operate and achieve accurate, meaningful solutions.

Major Features and Benefits

EMDS for ADS comes with a list of impressive features. These key technological enablers demonstrate the advantages of full 3D EM design and verification which include:

Application Areas

EM modeling tools are known for their great accuracy. EMDS for ADS redefines this term with broad application coverage, including the following:

Visualization and Display of Results

The visualization and animation capabilities in EMDS for ADS enable you to evaluate simulation results thoroughly.

To aid in analyzing your designs, EM field animation and dynamic rotation of structures can be performed simultaneously. Choose from shaded plots, contour lines, or vectors. 3D far-field plots illustrate beam shapes in both azimuth and elevation on a single plot. To aid in analyzing your designs, EM field animation and dynamic rotation of structures can be performed simultaneously. Choose from shaded plots, contour lines, or vectors. 3D far-field plots illustrate beam shapes in both azimuth and elevation on a single plot.

EMDS for ADS Overview

EMDS for ADS commands are available from the Layout window. The following steps describe a typical process for creating and simulating a design with EMDS for ADS:

  1. Create a physical design. You start with the physical dimensions of a planar design, such as a patch antenna or the traces on a multilayer printed circuit board. There are three ways to enter a design into Advanced Design System:
    • Convert a schematic into a physical layout
    • Draw the design using Layout
    • Import a layout from another simulator or design system. Advanced Design System can import files in a variety of formats.
      For information on converting schematics or drawing in Layout, refer the Schematic Capture and Layout documentation. For information on importing designs, refer to the Importing and Exporting Designs documentation.
  2. Define the substrate characteristics. A substrate is the media upon which the circuit resides. For example, a multilayer PC board consists of various layers of metal, insulating or dielectric material, and ground planes. Other designs may include covers, or they may be open and radiate into air. A complete substrate definition is required in order to simulate a design. The substrate definition includes the number of layers in the substrate and the composition of each layer. This is also where you position the layers of your physical design within the substrate, and specify the material characteristics of these layers. For more information, refer to, Substrates.
  3. Assign port properties. Ports enable you to inject energy into a circuit, which is necessary in order to analyze the behavior of your circuit. You apply ports to a circuit when you create the circuit, and then assign port properties in EMDS for ADS. There are several different types of ports that you can use in your circuit, depending on your application. For more information, refer to Ports.
  4. Add a box or a waveguide. These elements enable you to specify boundaries on substrates along the horizontal plane. Without a box or waveguide, the substrate is treated as being infinitely long in the horizontal direction. This treatment is acceptable for many designs, but there may be instances where a boundaries need to be taken into account during the simulation process. A box specifies the boundaries as four perpendicular, vertical walls that make a box around the substrate. A waveguide specifies two vertical walls that cut two sides of the substrate. For more information, refer to 3D Extension.
  5. Set Simulation Options. A mesh is a pattern of tetrrahedra that is applied to a design in order to break down (discretize) the design into small cells. A mesh is required in order to simulate the design effectively. You can specify a variety of mesh parameters to customize the mesh to your design, or use default values and let EMDS for ADS generate an optimal mesh automatically.
  6. Simulate the circuit . You set up a simulation by specifying the parameters of a frequency plan, such as the frequency range of the simulation and the sweep type. When the setup is complete, you run the simulation. The simulation process uses the mesh pattern, and the electric fields in the design are calculated. S-parameters are then computed based on the electric fields. If the Adaptive Frequency Sample sweep type is chosen, a fast, accurate simulation is generated, based on a rational fit model. For more information, refer to Simulation.
  7. Create Layout components. Layout components can be used in the schematic design environment in combination with all the standard ADS active and passive components to build and simulate circuits including the parasitic layout effects. The EMDS engine is automatically invoked to generate an S-parameter model for the Layout component during the circuit simulation. For more information on the Layout Components and EM/Circuit cosimulation feature, refer to Layout Components.
  8. View the results. The data from an EMDS simulation is saved as S-parameters or as fields. Use the Data Display or Visualization to view S-parameters and far-field radiation patterns. For more information, refer to Viewing Results Using the Data Display and Viewing Results.
  9. EMDS for ADS Visualization. EMDS for ADS visualization enables you to view and analyze, S-parameters, currents, far-fields, antenna parameters, and transmission line data. Data can be analyzed in a variety of 2D and 3D plot formats. Some types of data are displayed in tabular form.
  10. Radiation patterns. Once the electric fields on the circuit are known, the electromagnetic fields can be computed. They can be expressed in the spherical coordinate system attached to your circuit. For more information on radiation patterns, refer to Radiation Patterns and Antenna Characteristics
 

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