Articles
State Of The Art In EM Software For Microwave Engineers
March 24, 2009
By Jan Van Hese, Jeannick Sercu, Davy Pissoort, and Hee-Soo Lee, Agilent Technologies, Inc.
Introduction
The growing number and complexity of high frequency systems is leading to an increased need for electromagnetic (EM) simulation to accurately model larger portions of the system. There are several different technical approaches to EM simulation, and while no method is generally superior to the others, each one of them is aligned with one or more application areas. This article will discuss the three most established EM simulation technologies: method-of-moments (MoM), finite element method (FEM), and finite difference time domain (FDTD), linking the simulation technology to solving specific applications.
Overview of the method-of-moments
Among all techniques to solve EM problems, the method-of-moments (MoM) is one of the hardest to implement because it involves careful evaluation of Green's functions and EM coupling integrals. Maxwell's equations are transformed into integral equations which upon discretization yield the coupling matrix equation of the structure.
The advantage of this transform is that the current distributions on the metal surfaces emerge as the core unknowns. This is in contrast to other techniques which typically have the electric and/or magnetic fi elds (present everywhere in the solution space) as the core unknowns. Only the surfaces of the metals, where the currents flow, need to be taken into account in the meshing. Hence the number of unknowns (or the size of the matrix) is much smaller. This results in a very efficient simulation technique, able to handle very complex structures.
Click Here To Download:•White Paper: State Of The Art In EM Software For Microwave Engineers
