PRODUCT FEATURE
TAILORED RF &
MICROWAVE EDA
SOLUTIONS
Today’s engineering environment puts di- verse requirements on simulation tools, demanding large spatial dimensions
in terms of the computational domain on the
one hand, while incorporating small, detailed
and complex structures on the other. What’s
needed is to address these spatial limitations
and apply more advanced simulation routines
for combined physical problems. The latest release of SEMCAD X—V14 Aletsch—does just
that by offering a novel suite of solutions that
have been tailored to solve any of today’s engineering challenges within specific application
fields such as antennas, medical, automotive,
EMC/EMI, optics and microwave devices.
Problems in these engineering sectors include:
• Antennas: MIMO systems in the proximity
of the human body embedded in a multipath
propagation environment
• Medical: Assessment of the safety of implanted micro devices exposed to electromagnetic
fields in a macro environment
• EMC/EMI: Power and signal integrity on
multichip (MCM) PCBs
• Optical: Modeling a nano-structured photovoltaic solar cell
• Microwave: Broadband simulation of an entire
1,000 way unequal waveguide power divider
• Low frequency: A human body exposed to magnetic fields in the vicinity of an induction heating
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All these challenges are centered on Maxwell’s equations and many different numerical
approaches have been developed to solve these
equations, each having their own advantages
and limitations. The Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method is well-suited to
solving highly inhomogeneous structures (
dielectric and metal), mainly due to its straight-
forward, robust and efficient approach. In
addition, GPU-based hardware acceleration
solutions, offering simulation times of up to
100 times faster in desktop form-factors, are
still mostly tailored to FDTD solvers. Therefore, the FDTD method is more often suited
to solving large and complex electromagnetic
simulations.
SEMCAD X V14 Aletsch offers high performance EM and Thermal FDTD-based solvers;
Finite Element Method (FEM)-based low frequency as well as static solvers—all in 32 and 64
bit, and on all available operating systems and
platforms. In addition, special methods such as
conformal solvers C-FDTD/FIT, ADI-FDTD
and special material models (thin sheets, real
metals, etc.) are provided. All these solvers are
coupled with each other within different solutions
and interfaced to NVIDIA GPU-based hardware
acceleration provided by Acceleware Corp.
As mentioned earlier, the solutions are tailored to specific solutions, which will be addressed in turn.
ANTENNAS
SEMCAD X ANTENNA enables accurate
and fast broadband frequency characterization
covering a full spectrum from miniaturized antennas to large reflecting/radiating structures.
The multi-parameter (S-parameter, SAR and
Near- & Far-field) and multi-goal optimization
engine, based on a number of algorithms like
Genetic, Tree, Powell and Swarm, enables the
optimization of highly complex CAD imported
and derived structures.
SCHMID & PARTNER ENGINEERING
AG (SPEAG)
Zurich, Switzerland
