-
- 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
University of Messina Uses NI AWR Design Tools to Model Microwave Amps
October 28, 2015 | NIEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
The University of Messina, in Messina, Italy, has always been characterized by its high quality of research and teaching. It is committed to European higher education so as to foster mobility, increase employment, and attract students and academics from within as well as outside Europe. The University of Messina participates in partnerships with foreign universities, promotes international research projects, and supports European and international exchange programs.
The Design Challenge
The University of Messina Microwave Electronics Lab (EleMIC) uses NI AWR Design Environment software for research and all microwave electronics education levels (B.S., M.S., Ph.D.). The challenge for Professor Alina Caddemi is to not only introduce her students to the secrets of microwave circuit analysis and design, but also to make it a truly exciting experience.
Of particular interest to Prof. Caddemi is device modeling. In this domain, she and her group have 25 years of experience and more than 200 international papers published. A tough benchmark has been the design of single-stage, high-power microwave amplifier using complex device models for nonlinear analysis of the device behavior as well as optimization. The group recently used Microwave Office circuit design software to tune the behavior of a gallium arsenide (GaAs) high-electron mobility transistor (HEMT) wafer previously characterized in the microwave range (2-18 GHz) under dark and laser-light illuminated conditions. A key challenge was the noise analysis and modeling aspect that was markedly changed by the light exposure.
The Solution
NI AWR Design Environment fulfills the EleMIC’s requirements for having very agile software tools to accomplish the fine tuning required for model refinement, complete and versatile nonlinear analysis tools, and easy management of layout generation for EM simulation. For the work presented in the IEEE conference paper, the software was used to analyze in detail the performance changes of a GaAs HEMT-based low-noise amplifier under visible (650 nm) laser exposure. The device employed was first characterized in dark and illuminated conditions over the 2-18 GHz frequency range in terms of DC, scattering and noise parameters. Subsequently, it was modeled by means of a linear circuit model with associated noise sources in both conditions. By employing the experimental results, a low-noise amplifier was then designed and optimized for dark-mode operation in the 7.5-8.5 GHz frequency range. Finally, the performance of the LNA under light exposure was evaluated.
On the basis of device performance variations under VIS light exposure, either a severe degradation of the noise figure, a slight increase of the amplifier gain, or a moderate variation of the input/output matching was expected. Instead, the obtained results exhibited a moderate degradation of the overall LNA performance due to device illumination, except for the input matching level which showed to be improved. NI AWR Design Environment was then used to analyze the correlation between the device model variations and the amplifier behavior to get a deeper insight into the observed trends.
On the basis of measured results, a low-noise amplifier was tailored on the device performance in dark conditions. The design was carried out Microwave Office, with performance goals centered in the 7.5 to 8.5 GHz frequency band. Alumina (εr = 9.9, tg δ = 0.0002, h = 250 μm) was adopted for the substrate with 5 µm-thick gold metallization. The amplifier gain is above 10 dB, while the noise figure is 1.4 ± 0.15 dB over the entire band. Input and output matching levels stay higher than 10 dB within the chosen frequency band. The stability was monitored inside and all over outside the operating band by the value of coefficient. Modeling of the bonding wires has been accomplished by means of the resident multilevel bond wire model BWIRES2 that define bonding scheme parameters in compliance with EIA/JEDEC Standard No. 59.
Due to the required stabilization of the amplifier, we noticed that the reflection coefficient “seen” on the left side of the device input was not really close to Γopt within the operating band, i.e., broad-band stabilization was achieved at the expense of the noise mismatch.
Why NI AWR Design Environment
Prof. Caddemi chose NI AWR Design Environment software because it has a very user friendly interface, is easy to use, has a very good element help function that is highly beneficial for educational purposes, has powerful optimization capabilities and achieves very fast and accurate EM analysis. Productivity, ease of use, simulation speed, availability of models, and technical support were cited as the most helpful features. For Prof. Caddemi, the most valuable aspect of the software is that it is a powerful tool suite for expert engineers and novice students.
For more information, visit www.ni.com.
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.