INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER®

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Lecture 5.
INTRODUCTION
TO
ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Software Tools for RF/Microwave Design
RF designers nowadays extensively use various simulation tools when
designing RF components.
There are many commercial software packages for simulation of RF circuits that
may be obtained on the market. Companies such as Ansoft Corporation,
Agilent Technologies, Sonnet, Eagleware, etc. offer simulation programs
that very often incorporate circuit modeling, full electromagnetic simulation, as
well as statistical analysis of RF components and systems.
We will give a brief overview of two commercial RF simulation packages offered
by Ansoft Corporation:
Ansoft Designer®
Ansoft HFSS®
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Software Tools for RF/Microwave Design (cont.)
Ansoft Designer ® is an integrated schematic and
design tool used for complex analog, RF and mixed
signal applications. It enables RF engineers to
design, optimize, and validate component, circuit,
and system performance long before building a
prototype of RF circuit.
Ansoft HFSS ® is a full 3D electromagnetic simulator
widely used for the design of various passive and
active RF components, interconnects, antennas, and
RFIC packages. It is based on finite element
numerical method and provides a user friendly
graphic user interface.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
This is how Ansoft Designer® Desktop looks after the program is started:
Software Tools for RF/Microwave Design (cont.)
Click on this icon to introduce a circuit editor
This pop-up
window shows up
letting you choose
layout properties of
your RF circuit (we
will choose ‘None’
option)
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
The schematic editor window allows you to place components and wire them
together. You can move components by simply selecting and dragging them. Copy
and paste can be used on components and their wires within the schematic editor.
You can also copy
and paste to other
schematics.
Click on ‘Components’ to import
various models of RF components
into your circuit model
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Choose a component and simply
drag it into the schematic editor
window
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Position cursor over the end of the
component and drag to the end of
the subsequent component to wire
the two.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Double-click on the component to
edit its properties (impedance,
electrical length, etc)
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Click on this icon to introduce
ports. Double-click on a port opens
a window that enables editing
properties of the port.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
In order to define operating frequency range, click on ‘Analysis’.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Click on this icon to perform analysis of your circuit model!
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Right-click on ‘Results’ to define
parameters to be displayed and to
display results of your simulation.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Instead of an ideal distributed component
with electrical parameters (such as
characteristic impedance and electrical
length), we can also define components with
physical parameters (stripline in this case).
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Double-click on a physical component
opens up a window that enables
definition of component parameters.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Click on ‘Substrate’ to define
properties of substrate.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Click on ‘TRL’ to open a Transmission tool that
performs necessary transformations of electrical into
physical parameters and vice versa.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Analysis of the new physical circuit as well as
displaying results is described before.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
You can further improve your circuit model and
bring it closer to the actual geometrical model
of your RF component by adding various
models of RF discontinuities.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
This circuit simulator also lets you
define variables and optimize them for
a predefined goals (double-click on a
component which parameters you
want to edit).
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic

Lecture 5. INTRODUCTION TO ANSOFT DESIGNER ®
Next class we will build a full 3D geometrical model of the divider whose circuit
model we developed today.
EE 433 Microwave Engineering (Fall 2010): Notes 3B, Lecturer: Assist prof dr Moamer Hasanovic