New Software Tool Aids in Wireless Design
The Serenade Design Environment provides links between tools at different levels, allowing designers to shape their design process to fit their needs. For example, users of Ensemble 6.0 can generate designs from Serenade layouts. Through the Serenade Environment, engineers can also produce S-parameter files from Ensemble simulation results for use in circuit and system simulations.
Ensemble 6.0 offers the ability to perform a full wave electromagnetic (EM) simulation, with embedded circuit elements in the structure. This allows designers to analyze the metal traces and coupling details of their circuits while still including the S-parameters of the active devices in the overall response of the circuit. The ability to include black box circuit elements also allows engineers to remove sections of the metal structure, such as spiral inductors and planar antenna subarrays, from the full-wave simulation in a hierarchical fashion to save simulation time.
In addition to simulating black box circuit elements embedded into EM simulation, Ensemble 6.0 now simulates both closed cavity and open region formulations of the method-of-moments (MoM). Circuit designers can analyze the effects of packages on their circuits by simulating structures enclosed in a metal cavity and in open air and then comparing the results. Circuit traces connecting from the inside of an enclosure to a top level surface can be modeled by Ensemble 6.0 using cavities and open formulations simultaneously in one simulation. Antenna designers can use this same feature to simulate novel cavity backed antennas by simulating stacked closed and open regions simultaneously in one structure.
Ensemble 6.0 also allows designers to simulate thin film resistors two different ways, either as black box circuit elements described by S-parameters, or as geometries of thin film resistor material specified in ohms per square on metal layers. Vertical metal vias can be specified in terms of complex loads or RLC parameters. Ensemble 6.0 also allows coplanar waveguide (CPW) structures to be specified in infinite ground planes where they can make use of magnetic currents.
By releasing Ensemble 6.0, <%=company%> has phased out its previous planar tool, called Maxwell Strata. In addition to reading Strata design files directly, Ensemble 6.0 incorporates the capabilities of Strata within its feature set. Current Strata customers will be automatically upgraded to Ensemble 6.0.
Ensemble 6.0 is available for immediate delivery on UNIX workstations and Windows NT systems. Licensing options include floating network licenses, node-locked software licenses, and portable hardware keys.