Sonnet Announces Sonnet Suites Release 14

New features and enhancements provide faster simulation, ability to conquer larger circuits and layouts, and a more automated design flow through the EM extraction process

Leading High Frequency Electromagnetic (EM) Software provider, Sonnet Software, Inc. introduces their latest version of software, the Sonnet Suites Release 14, featuring enhanced speed for Sonnet’s 3D planar EM simulation engine, new technology to automate EM model extraction, and GUI enhancements for efficient use in enterprise computing environments.

Existing users will see faster simulations, especially on new generation multi-core computing platforms.  In addition to allowing more CPU cores to be used in parallel over the previous release, the Sonnet meshing algorithms have been further tuned to yield faster simulations.  Large-scale via arrays and via bar structures are more efficiently meshed for accelerated simulation of deep-node silicon RFIC stacked metal inductors, baluns, transformers, and interconnects.  A new Stackup Manager has been added to the Sonnet Project Editor, providing an intuitive graphic interface for creating or editing the process stackup.  The Stackup Manager also makes it easier for inexperienced users to edit or modify circuitry on a given drawing or process layer.
Sonnet’s signature Co-calibrated Ports provide unprecedented accuracy for internal port calibration, enabling error-free access to internal connections for large passive circuits. In the past, to fully leverage this capability, an engineer needed to manually group the co-calibrated ports. In Release 14, Sonnet introduces Automatic Co-calibrated Port grouping, a feature that relieves the designer of manual work by giving the solver intelligence to group ports automatically.

Another new addition to the Sonnet Suites is the Inductor Model Extractor (IME), which extracts an intuitive equivalent circuit based on EM analyses of spiral inductors. Model topologies for both Center-Tapped and Untapped spiral inductors are available.

Sonnet Release 14 provides graphical user interface (GUI) updates to meet the growing need for deployment on Linux and Virtual Machine (VM) host hardware platforms.  The Sonnet Suite Release 14 interfaces have been tuned for fast response over remote host and VM host networks—increasingly important for enterprise-level installations.

RF engineers using the Cadence Virtuoso , AWR Microwave Office, or Agilent ADS platforms will also notice increased automation for Sonnet’s seamless integration products. Improvements such as Automatic Co-calibrated Ports and the Stackup Manager (available for Cadence Virtuoso and Agilent ADS) allow for truly streamlined 3D planar EM model extraction without breaking the flow. For more information, visit www.sonnetsoftware.com.

About Sonnet
Sonnet is a worldwide leader in developing accurate High Frequency EM Simulation Software for microwave and millimeter-wave design engineers and provides the industry standard for 3D planar electromagnetic software.