-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueLevel Up Your Design Skills
This month, our contributors discuss the PCB design classes available at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. As they explain, these courses cover everything from the basics of design through avoiding over-constraining high-speed boards, and so much more!
Opportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Keysight PathWave Software Selected by Menlo Micro
July 19, 2021 | Keysight Technologies, Inc.Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Keysight Technologies, Inc., a leading technology company that delivers advanced design and validation solutions to help accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, announced that Menlo Micro has selected the company’s PathWave Advanced Design System (ADS) and Electromagnetic (EM) Design software to innovate advances in material science and develop high-performance microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switches.
Menlo Micro needed to resolve customer challenges relating to accurate 3D electromagnetic simulation and integrated design, test and measurement workflows in the development of its new MM5130, an ultra-low-loss radio-frequency (RF) SP4T switch, to address high-power switching applications up to 26 GHz. With an eye on time to market, Menlo targeted a short design cycle of three to four months.
Menlo Micro wanted to validate performance of its new MM5130 switch early in the development process, so it chose to implement its own PCB de-embedding algorithms into Keysight’s PathWave ADS software. “In choosing design tools, we needed to consider the whole flow, from the schematic to the 3D simulations,” said Dr. Xu Zhu, Menlo Micro’s director of technology. “Our engineers need to be familiar with the tools, and that is one of the reasons why we chose Keysight’s PathWave Advanced Design System as the core tool.”
Menlo chose Keysight’s EM Design software, including EMPro and RFPro, integrated into the PathWave ADS platform, to create a familiar design environment for their engineering team. Because the engineers were constantly changing and adjusting the layout in PathWave ADS, a smooth workflow from circuit layout to 3D EM simulation was critical.
Keysight’s EMPro and RFPro enabled Menlo to make smooth translations from the 2D layout to the 3D model files. Keysight’s RFPro, with the SmartMount and Mesh Domain Optimization technologies, solved the mesh optimization challenges. Menlo Micro’s design flow includes tools from multiple vendors, so interoperability was critical.
As a result, Menlo Micro was able to shorten the design cycle of its new MEMS switch by 65 percent with measurements correlating closely to simulation. Previous projects of this scale could take up to nine months. When comparing key banner specifications against other alternatives, Menlo Micro verified its innovative technology offered significant improvements in power density (SP4T 25 W power handling), RF insertion loss, linearity and ultra-low power consumption.
"Menlo Micro designed a complex, multi-technology module comprised of a wide range of geometries from micron-scale MEMs to millimeter-scale PCBs,” stated Tom Lillig, general manager of Keysight’s PathWave Design business. “Leveraging Keysight’s fast, high capacity, 3D EM circuit simulators they achieved a successful implementation in one pass.”
Menlo also created device prototypes and conducted measurements by wafer probing, which demonstrated first-pass manufacturing success. Next, their engineering team performed measurements on Keysight’s vector network analyzer (VNA) to compare its simulation results against actual de-embedded device measurements as a proof of concept for customers.
Suggested Items
Connect the Dots: Designing for Reality—The Pre-Manufacturing Process
05/08/2024 | Matt Stevenson -- Column: Connect the DotsI have been working with Nolan Johnson on a podcast series about designing PCBs for the reality of manufacturing. By sharing lessons learned over a long career in the PCB industry, we hope to shorten learning curves and help designers produce better boards with less hassle and rework. Episode 2 deals with the electronic pre-manufacturing process. Moving from CAD (computer-aided design) to CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) is a key step in PCB manufacturing. CAM turns digital designs into instructions that machines can use to actually build the PCB.
Indium Corporation to Showcase HIA Materials at ECTC
05/07/2024 | Indium CorporationAs an industry leader in innovative materials solutions for semiconductor packaging and assembly, Indium Corporation® will feature its advanced products designed to meet the evolving challenges of heterogeneous integration and assembly (HIA) and fine-pitch system-in-package (SiP) applications at the 74th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), May 28‒31, in Denver, Colorado.
Siemens Delivers New Solido IP Validation Suite
05/07/2024 | SiemensSiemens Digital Industries Software introduced Solido™ IP Validation Suite software, a comprehensive, automated signoff solution for quality assurance across all design intellectual property (IP) types, including standard cells, memories and IP blocks.
Altair Acquires Research in Flight, Forging a New Path for Aerodynamic Analysis
05/07/2024 | AltairAltair a global leader in computational intelligence, announced it has acquired Research in Flight, maker of FlightStream®, which provides computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software with a large footprint in the aerospace and defense sector and a growing presence in marine, energy, turbomachinery, and automotive applications.
Happy’s Tech Talk #28: The Power Mesh Architecture for PCBs
05/07/2024 | Happy Holden -- Column: Happy’s Tech TalkA significant decrease in HDI substrate production cost can be achieved by reducing the number of substrate layers from conventional through-hole multilayers and microvia multilayers of eight, 10, 12 (and more), down to four. Besides reducing direct processing steps, yield will increase as defect producing operations are eliminated.