ADS Design Flows and Applications

MMIC Design

Reduce costs and get to market fast, and first. This is the challenge that MMIC designers face. ADS rises to this challenge, making MMIC design faster and easier than ever before. ADS supports a complete, front-to-back flow by incorporating Layout and all of the ADS simulation technologies (system, circuit, and electromagnetic) in a single, integrated design flow. All of today’s leading GaAs foundries actively maintain component design kits that support the powerful ADS simulation technologies.

In microwave circuit design, the circuit and physical designs must be closely linked. ADS enables you to start a MMIC design in either the layout or schematic environment. The design synchronization engine controls and tracks design updates and supports multiple design synchronization modes to match your methodology.

MMIC Layout - TriQuint Semiconductor Inc. - Used by permission.

Signal Integrity Analysis

Signal integrity is a major concern for engineers of high-data-rate designs, such as Infiniband, PCI Express, and RapidIO. Meeting the demand for increasingly fast circuits with high clock speeds is a constant challenge. High-frequency analog effects such as reflection, cross talk, ground bounce, and propagation delays through interconnects adversely affect signal quality and timing performance.
ADS has the right simulation tools and libraries, including a multi-layer interconnect library that enables you to accurately model and analyze high-speed interconnect problems before fabrication, resulting in lower development costs and faster time to market.

Eye Diagram.

RFIC Design

As today's wireless and wireline applications increase in frequency and speed, RFIC design engineers need access to accurate and efficient high-frequency simulation tools. Shorter product lifecycles and global competition continue to add pressure for quality product designs. Keysight's PathWave Design Software has the most comprehensive set of simulation tools, models, and verification features to increase the robustness of your RFIC designs.
If your designs are based on the Cadence flow, you can access Keysight’s powerful frequency-domain simulation technologies directly from within the Cadence environment using Keysight’s PathWave RFIC Design (GoldenGate) simulation software. Circuit netlists from the Cadence environment can also be brought into PathWAve Advanced Design System (ADS) for system-level analysis using Dynamic Link. Either way, you’ve got the power to efficiently design RFICs with high performance and yield for capitalizing on market opportunities.

PathWave RFIC Design (GoldenGate) Improves Transient SPICE Simulation Speed.

RF & Microwave Board Design

Today’s high-frequency RF board designer wants few board re-spins and high-yield designs. The integrated system, circuit, and EM simulators, Layout, and powerful optimizers in ADS help increase productivity and efficiency, validating your high-yield designs prior to manufacturing. Our focus on design flow integration means that ADS works with your other framework integration products, such as Mentor and Cadence.

Integration also means that the ADS Layout tool is linked to the schematic environment. This back-annotating link, coupled with our integrated EM simulator, allows you to account for physical effects that could significantly affect design performance. The Physical Connectivity Engine detects wiring information that is so important to a correct layout, and feeds it to the interconnect checking features in ADS for an accurate representation of layout interconnects.

RF Mixed-Signal Board.

RF System-in-Package & RF Module Design

The trend in the wireless industry toward smaller form factor and more functionality has been driving technology innovations for continued increase in functional density and a decrease in the cost per function. SiP, SoP, and 3DIC technologies are rapidly evolving from a specialty technology used in a narrow set of applications, to a high volume technology that addresses current market and design challenges. However the complex design problems with mixed signal, mixed mode, multi-technology, increased interconnect density and closer design proximity has also increased design challenges to meet design requirements faster and at a lower cost.

RF System-in-Package (RF SiP).

Connected Solutions

Today, the complexities of system design are greater than ever. Designers working with recent and emerging wireless standards such as LTE and WiMAX^TM need to reduce design turns and get to market quickly with a complete system that satisfies the needs of RF/analog and baseband applications. Aerospace/defense industry designers also need quick design turns and rapid design verification when specifications are incomplete and measurements are highly specialized.

Wireless communications product system designs must be partitioned into their baseband and RF portions. For the baseband portion, ADS offers an extensive digital baseband library for use with the Keysight Ptolemy simulator. For the RF portion, ADS provides more behavioral models than any other EDA vendor – more than 1800 models in all.

Connected Solutions.

Learn more about PathWave Advanced Design System (ADS).