Harmonica Circuit Simulator Gains Significant New Functionality

New Wireless Systems Simulator Symphony®

PITTSBURGH - May 6, 1999 – Ansoft Corporation (NASDAQ: ANST) announced today the delivery of Serenade Version 8.0, the premier PC-based high-frequency design suite. Serenade 8.0 includes significant new capabilities, which speed the design of cellular phones, pagers, wireless LANs, satellite communications, and telecommunications systems.

"Serenade 8.0 addresses new and existing applications in high-frequency design," said Jason Gerber, Serenade Product Manager. "The addition of system analysis brings us further into the wireless communications market and positions Ansoft’s high-frequency tools to cover all aspects of RF design."

Symphony System Simulator

A new high-frequency system analysis tool, Symphony®, provides powerful RF and digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities. Engineers can now address mixed-signal, digital, and RF analyses for digital wireless systems such as GSM, IS-95 CDMA, and TDMA. Entire analog/digital communications systems can be analyzed for key results such as gain, noise figure, and bit error rate (BER). For ultimate flexibility systems can be simulated in both the time (transient) and frequency domains. Because Symphony runs within the Serenade Desktop, engineers can link to the Harmonica circuit simulator to take detailed circuit effects into account. Symphony also links with third-party tools like Matlab® allowing users to inject Matlab-generated data, e.g., a digitally modulated signal, noise, etc., into any node in the system. Symphony can simulate emerging 3G cellular standards such as W-CDMA by importing I-Q data from measurements or third-party simulators. Symphony handles high levels of design complexity so that key decisions and trade-offs can be made up front, enabling responsible system level decisions, reduced costs, and faster time-to-market.

Design Flexibility

Serenade Version 8.0 is a component of the Serenade Design Environment, a single software suite delivering all high-frequency design technologies: system, circuit, electromagnetic simulation, synthesis, and physical design. Utilizing the Serenade Design Environment, engineers can access schematic capture; high-frequency circuit, electromagnetic, and system simulators; layout; IC package modeling; and links to third party tools. "Over the past two years we’ve shipped three major releases of Serenade providing a close link between system, circuit and electromagnetic simulation," said Dr. Lawrence Williams, Director of Marketing for high-frequency products. Handshaking between tools allows engineers to focus on critical components at any stage of engineering development. Each simulator can be used as a powerful, stand-alone tool or in concert with others for end-to-end high-frequency design. Serenade offers flexibility plus integration without a rigid hierarchy.

Harmonica Circuit Simulator

All of Harmonica’s unique advantages migrated to Version 8.0, including unparalleled simulation accuracy, digital modulation, and comprehensive design utilities. In addition to adjacent channel measurements, power over subsequent bands can be measured and alternate channel power ratios can be computed. A smoothing function similar to the "video bandwidth" filter on a spectrum analyzer was added to filter out the fast variations in a digital modulation spectrum. Tight links to the system simulator are provided by P_out/P_in data formats. These formats support power data over multiple frequencies or biases. The CITI file format is now supported to link measured s-parameter data from network analyzers.

The harmonic-balance nonlinear solver provides faster convergence when using the iterative Newton (Krylov subspace) solver for simulation of multi-tone, large circuits. New crystal libraries were added for Cardinal and Nexus crystals with more than 20,000 model entries. Two new keywords, especially useful when developing active device models, can be used as optimization goals. The FMIN keyword allows optimization of minimum noise figure for a two-port linear circuit, and the GOPT keyword allows optimization of optimum reflection coefficient (to achieve FMIN).

Desktop and Schematic User Interface

With Version 8.0, any component can be deactivated in a schematic. This usability feature gives engineers the ability to remove a component from the simulation therefore allowing "what if" simulations. Version 8.0 brings engineers a new utility that allows the user to select a prototype symbol for a schematic subcircuit. The symbol can then be used directly or it can be customized using an on-screen editor. Electrical rule checking (ERC) can be performed automatically prior to each simulation to catch errors in the hierarchical circuit such as unconnected nodes. The bill-of-materials generator compiles a list of parts used in each subcircuit of the project. Options to enable/disable certain classes of parts are provided, e.g., distributed elements may be turned off so they do not appear in the report. The TRL simulator is a handy and accurate tool for synthesizing and analyzing single and coupled transmission lines in a number of different media including microstrip, stripline, and coplanar waveguide. TRL now provides synthesis and analysis of coaxial and twin-lead transmission lines. Furthermore, TRL streamlines design by exporting the transmission line and its substrate directly to the schematic.

Serenade Layout

Serenade Version 8.0 Layout includes many new features. The AnsoftEM driver is a new feature enabling easy transfer of layout design data from Serenade Layout into the EM analysis tools. The driver writes the Ansoft Neutral File Set (ANFS) that can be read into Strata 1.x and Ensemble 6 using their ANFS file translation tools. Another new feature is the WMF driver, which allows the export of Windows Meta-Files for exact vector representation of layout geometries in other Windows programs for documentation purposes. An RS-274-X ("Extended Gerber") driver complements the existing RS-274-D ("Vector Gerber") driver. The new driver supports embedded apertures, the new more powerful polygon commands (G36/G37), and is optimized for export to Cadence Allegro. Protel and Tango drivers are also improved, with most non-layout parameter values now transferred as target system component values. Serenade Version 8.0 Layout extracts a parameter value from the netlist and transfers it to Protel or Tango in addition to the footprint assignment. AutoCAD DXF files can now be read into the Serenade layout tool. Mechanical drawings can be imported to the library editor and used as a background symbol to give a better impression how the RF circuit fits into the mechanical environment.

Graphics and Tools

Serenade 8.0 brings improvements to Serenade’s graphics and tools. The improved Filter Synthesis utility now creates lumped bandpass filters and lumped filters of all types using the elliptic transfer functions. Improved physical representations of microstrip and stripline filters, including transmission line end effects, are exported to Harmonica. Also, physical representation of hairpin filters in microstrip and stripline can now be exported. A new translator utility is included, allowing HP EEsof Series IV® users to migrate to Serenade’s more practical solution. AnsoftLinks for HP EEsof Series IV is a smart translator software utility that migrates entire high-frequency circuit designs from Series IV to Ansoft’s Serenade Design Environment. Users of Series IV and the EEsof Libra nonlinear circuit simulator now have a choice when considering their upgrade options.

Availability

Serenade 8.0 is available for immediate delivery on Windows NT and Windows 95/98 systems. Licensing options include floating network licenses, node-locked software licenses, and portable hardware keys. Minimum system requirements are a Pentium class machine with SVGA graphics, CD-ROM drive, and 32MB of RAM.

Ansoft is a leading developer of EDA software. Its products are used by engineers in the design of high performance electrical devices and systems, such as cellular phones, satellite communications, circuit boards, motors and anti-lock braking systems (ABS). Ansoft markets its products worldwide through its direct sales force and distributors, and provides comprehensive customer support and training. Ansoft customers include leading electronics, telecommunications, and automotive companies including Lucent Technologies, Ericsson, General Motors, Motorola, ABB, Raytheon, TRW, Mitsubishi, Texas Instruments, Hitachi, AT&T, Chrysler and Sun Microsystems.

###

Series IV is a registered trademark of the Hewlett-Packard Company (Palo Alto, CA).

Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA).

Matlab is a registered trademark of The Mathworks (Natick, MA)

Currently, AnsoftLinks for HP EEsof Series IV is supported on PC platforms, running Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0.

Ansoft is publicly traded on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "ANST."