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3D electromagnetic simulation is not only being used for the well established applications of antenna and microwave design, but issues associated with EMC, EMI, ESD and shielding also mean that it is playing an increasingly important role in the product development process across a wide range of applications. To extend its reach and to address these new areas of application the latest version of the MicroStripes full 3D electromagnetic solution—Version 7.5—boasts some major new additions.

As with its predecessors, Version 7.5 continues to use the robust and proven time domain-based Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) method for solving Maxwell’s equations initially developed by Peter B. Johns. This highly efficient technique also brings advantages when looking at transient EMI issues such as lightning, electrostatic discharge (ESD) and electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

RF Circuit Integration

Because 3D EM simulators play a supporting role to RF/microwave system and circuit design tools it is important that these 3D tools have the capability to be integrated seamlessly into existing RF/microwave design flows by working with the existing design tools. Typically, within the circuit design tools, models are built using a combination of circuit models, transmission line models and ‘black box’ devices. For more complex structures, 3D EM analysis is required for computing the device characteristics such as S-parameters that are to be used for the system analysis. This is especially important when the system being analyzed contains antenna elements and 3D geometry. With the release of Version 7.5, the integration between the simulation software and AWR’s Microwave Office® design suite has been realized. This allows the simulation software to be used from within the design environment for simulating the response of selected components within the RF/microwave circuit design. The interface automatically builds the simulation model, launches its analysis and then passes the results back to the design suite when the simulation is complete. The design suite then uses the computed characterization of the component in the circuit simulation of the entire system.

Thus, the designer has complete access to the powerful MicroStripes feature set. This allows, amongst other things, full radiation conditions to be taken into account in the antenna analysis and crucially allows full 3D geometries to be included in the model. As an example, Figure 1 shows a four-element planar patch array as imported from Microwave Office into Version 7.5, where additional 3D geometry has been added to account for the device on which the array is mounted, together with the radome.

The inclusion of the 3D geometry is critical in the antenna analysis. This is because it allows the interaction between the antenna elements and the device on which they are mounted to be accounted for in the simulation and for the fully installed characteristics to be computed.

The result of this integration moves Flomerics’ high frequency EM offering from a leading EM tool to a solution that can play a key part in a true RF/microwave integrated design environment.