W2349EP ADS Electro-Thermal Simulator Element

Watch a 30-second demo on ADS Electro-Thermal Simulation

The ADS Electro-Thermal Simulation Element capabilities include:

• Accuracy – temperature aware circuit simulation results based on state-of-the-art thermal solver technology
• Efficiency – directly integrated with the ADS layout environment and circuit simulators; no need to transfer data to stand-alone thermal solvers
• Speed – high capacity thermal solver technology that has been tested on SoC designs with thousands of components

Additional support for:

• Steady-state (harmonic balance, DC, AC, S-parameter) analysis
• Transient and envelope analyses
• A wide range of GaAs, Si, SiGe and other process technologies
• Linux 64-bit OS platform

When designing high power RFIC / MMIC components for products such as power amplifier modules, circuit simulation accuracy is dependent on having accurate device temperatures. Many transistor models now include self-heating models, but this does not take into account thermal coupling between devices, nor heat transfer through the die and packaging. This can lead to significant inaccuracies, especially in highly integrated designs where several power transistors are in close proximity. The ADS Electro-Thermal Analysis Solution provides accurate, “temperature aware” IC simulation results by using device temperatures that take into account thermal coupling, and thermal characteristics of the package.

The new thermal solver, highly tuned to RFIC / MMIC applications is available in ADS 2012. The solver runs a full 3D thermal analysis of the IC, utilizing power dissipation data from the ADS circuit simulator and device location information from the ADS layout design and material thermal properties from the process design kit (PDK). The thermal solver iterates with the circuit simulator, with the thermal solver providing updated temperatures to the circuit simulator, and then the circuit simulation providing updated power dissipation values to the thermal solver, until a converged solution is reached. The “temperature aware” circuit simulation results (e.g., gain, distortion levels) can be viewed in the ADS Data Display. A 3D viewer displays a dynamic temperature map of the IC.

Figure 1. The ADS Electro-Thermal Analysis Solution is comprised of a full 3D thermal solver tightly integrated with ADS circuit simulators and layout environment.

Figure 2. Typical results from ADS Electro-Thermal Analysis Solution. Figure on the left shows steady state results of “cold” (blue – thermal solver off) and “hot” (red – with thermal solver on). Figure on the right shows 3D thermal map. This MMIC design example has 86 HBT devices, and the total combined circuit + thermal simulation time is under two minutes.

Learn more about Advanced Design System (ADS) Simulation Elements