The two product suites targeting signal integrity designs are DesignerSI and DesignerSI Circuit. The three RF product suites are DesignerRF, DesignerRF Circuit and DesignerRF PlanarEM. To address applications such as this, the product is now available in different suites with functionality bundled into sub-sets for specific design types, reducing potential gaps between tool capability and designer requirements. Unless the antenna is to be integrated with a power amplifier, the antenna designer will likely have no need for system-level or harmonic balance circuit simulation. For instance, a planar antenna designer typically only needs an EM simulator, layout tool, optional schematic capture (depending if the design is based on a library of parts), design environment with plot generation and linear (and maybe transient) analyses. While the majority of high speed/frequency electronics require the functionality offered by the integration of circuit, system and EM simulators, many design problems do not. With the recent release of Ansoft Designer/Nexxim version 5.0, the company is expanding the product’s focus beyond the needs of the most demanding, high-performance circuits in order to address a wider range of design problems. The targeted applications included high-performance RF/microwave, Signal Integrity and RFIC designs that, due to the size and complexity of the passive structures, high transistor count and spectral density could not be addressed with existing simulation tools or had to be partitioned to reduce the problem size. Combining the capabilities of HFSS and SIwave with Nexxim through the Ansoft Designer environment, Ansoft envisioned a solution for three specific application areas that required a set of tools capable of solving larger problems without sacrificing accuracy. The roadmap for Ansoft Designer called for developing dynamic links to Ansoft’s other 3D electromagnetic simulation products (HFSS and SIwave) and replacing the circuit simulation technology (Serenade) with a new high-capacity circuit simulator developed by Ansoft called Nexxim, which was introduced in 2004. Direct access of the planar solver to a parameterized physical design within the circuit simulation would change the role of an EM simulator from verification tool to a full-fledged design optimization tool. The so-called “Solver-on-Demand” feature allowed engineers to characterize passive interconnects in situ using the software’s planar EM solver.

Ansoft Designer incorporated a number of innovations into the design environment’s user-interface, providing circuit designers with unprecedented access to the company’s core competency in electromagnetic simulation.

Ansoft Designer 3.5