grated schematic capture and graphical layout with back-annotation, a first
for RF EDA software. MDS was offered on UNIX workstations from HP,
Sun and Apollo as well on the PC (not
Microsoft Windows but SCO UNIX).
Schematic capture would help engineers enter their circuits graphically,
thereby speeding-up design entry (for
some) and providing a useful visual
for circuit troubleshooting. To no surprise, the introduction of HP’s MDS
product soon ended the marketing
relationship with EEsof, at least temporarily.
Competition between Compact,
EEsof and new-entrant HP sparked
considerable innovation during these
years. Also driving development
was the DARPA program known as
MIMIC. The overall goal of this program was to provide analog microwave and mm-wave sensors, based
on gallium arsenide integrated circuit
technology that would improve performance, size, weight, cost and reliability for the armed services (Army,
Navy and Air Force). The program
targeted CAE specifically as an area
for development.
This program, similar to the earlier
MERA program that fueled TI’s GaAs
development, was announced in the
fall of 1985 by Egbert Maynard, the
czar of the DoD’s VHSIC program.
7
In 1987’s MIMIC program “Phase 0”,
each military branch awarded four
teams between $750 K and $1 M to
study the best way to develop and
produce affordable, reliable, high performance MMICs. “Characterization
of material and device processes and
the development of computer-aided
design capabilities” were specific program goals targeting design software.
The next year, the three services
managed to agree on a single statement of work and selected the four
teams that would move forward. In
phase 1, EEsof would team with
primes Hughes and GE and foundries AT&T, M/A-COM and Harris
in a contract worth $50 M. EEsof
would also collaborate with newly
formed Cadence to develop “Smart”
(simulation-able microwave artwork)
libraries, which combined an electrical model of MMIC components with
each component’s physical layout.
Compact would team up with primes
Raytheon and TI along with partners
COVER FEATURE
General Dynamics, Norden Systems,
Teledyne, Litton Airtron and Aerojet
on their contract worth $68 M (HP’s
MDS was not part of the phase 1
awards).
10
The infusion of money, directly and
to their end-users, would help subsidize the new developments in modeling, analysis and design to manufacturing (CAD layout) required to
support the complexity introduced by
MMIC technology through the late
1980s and early 1990s. While HP was
relatively quiet from the initial launch
of its linear simulator until 1989 and
the release of MDS B.01.00, Compact
and EEsof were extremely busy adding and marketing capabilities that
targeted the emerging MMIC market.
Acquired and internally developed
technologies, such as improved circuit
simulation, netlist to artwork conversion, CAD with graphical interfaces,
synthesis and IC model libraries were
continually being added to both families of products.
Over this period, EEsof linked
Touchstone to an artwork conversion
tool called MiCAD, a transmission
line calculator (LineCalc), circuit synthesis (E-Syn) and a version of microwave SPICE. The company also
introduced ANACAT, which allowed
control of the HP 8510 or equivalent
Wiltron network analyzer from a PC,
and sorted the resulting data into the
necessary formats for use with Touchstone, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBase. The
products also became available on the
DEC VAX, Apollo and HP 300 series
in addition to the PC.
By the middle of 1987, EEsof increased the number of components
available in Touchstone, added many
MMIC-based devices and was openly
hinting of upcoming nodal-reduction
algorithms (for speed and handling
larger circuits), generalized nodal
noise figure calculations, a schematic
editor specifically for microwave/RF
engineers and a new class of frequency-domain nonlinear simulator. The
mainframe platform support, MMIC
models, new analyses and emphasis
on computing power indicated that
the company was actively pursuing
the emerging MMIC market.
In 1987, as the battle for the
hearts and minds of MMIC designers raged, the cost-conscious side of
the software market was being ex-
