AWR: Intelligent RF Design

There is a new release of the AWR Design Environment with cross-platform workflows to support RF to mmWave based on both the Virtuoso (chip) and Allegro (PCB/package) platforms, and with integration to the system-level analysis solution Clarity 3D Solver and Celsius Thermal Solver. The new AWR Design Environment, including Microwave Office circuit design software, enables customers to design connected systems for automotive, radar systems, 5G, and more. The tightly integrated platform provides up to 50% faster turnaround time compared to competing workflows. The level of RF integration in this release is unique in the industry.

Cadence has also published a technical brief on RF design using AWR V16. See the end of this post for a link.

RF design has always been one of the most complex aspects of electronic system design. Everything, even unrelated pieces of metal, affects everything else. One of the challenges has always been the lack of good integrated design tools. I've told the story before from twenty years ago when I gave an invited keynote at an internal Nokia engineering meeting in Tampere, Finland. The Nokia VP who was giving the internal keynote told me that RF designers were so rare that he had a spreadsheet with all the competent RF designers in the world, where they worked, and how to contact them. Back in that era, it was even more of a black art than it is today since there were essentially no RF design and analysis tools beyond simulation. Spectre RF already existed, even back then. And, of course, Virtuoso could be used to lay out anything at the polygon level, even RF circuits. But that was it. RF design was hand-crafted analog design turned up to 11.

The situation has improved a lot, both in terms of the number of designers who are competent at doing RF design, and in the breadth and quality of the design tools available. RF design has become routine compared to when cell phones were first introduced and getting the radios to work at all was a challenge.

The portfolio of good design tools took a step forward today with the release of AWR Version 16. It is 5G that gets the headlines, but in fact, there are lots of other radio-based communication systems that are important, from WiFi 6, to Bluetooth, to Zigbee, and more. In fact, outside of the data center, wired connections are getting rarer (and inside the data center they are increasingly optical, but that's a post for another day). Your laptop is probably connected to the network on WiFi, to its keyboard and mouse with Bluetooth, and to your Zoom headphones/microphone also with Bluetooth. It's not that long ago that all of these would have been wired connections. Your phone has all that, plus cellular connectivity (5G, LTE, 4G voice, 4G data, and probably older standards too). It also has GPS, although that is receive-only, you are not transmitting to the satellites.

From a radio point of view, 5G is two completely different standards, known as sub-6GHz (also called the low and medium bands) and mmWave, which is not the band just above 6GHz but is way up the radio spectrum at 24-100GHz. There is effectively unlimited bandwidth available but it suffers from serious challenges: it doesn't go through walls or car windows, and it can only go a few hundred meters in air. The frequency is so different from the sub-6GHz band that it requires a different radio, and different approaches to beam-forming. I have written about 5G quite a bit, but for the best overview post see 5G: Connecting All the Things. If that sounds challenging enough, then 6G will go even higher to the so-called Terahertz band, actually about 500+GHz.

So what's new in AWR V16? A lot, but the big-ticket items are:

• Allegro integration: Ensures manufacturing compatibility and RF integration with PCB and IC package design flows
• Virtuoso integration: Leverages Microwave Office for RF front-end design IP and combines it with the Virtuoso Layout Suite for IC and module integration
• Clarity integration: Enables EM analysis for design verification of large RF structures such as module packaging and phased-array feed networks
• Celsius integration: Provides thermal analysis for monolithic microwave IC (MMIC) and PCB high-power RF applications
• AWR enhancements: Accelerates RF IP creation with advances in design automation and finite-element analysis (FEA) solver performance

These integrations are not all standalone and may all be required together, since a modern RF-based system might consist of an antenna, PCB, package, interposer with passives and a transmitter, and a chip with passives and most of the RF circuits. Pulling a paragraph out of the technical brief:

Advanced integration methodologies result in smaller and more efficient systems. However, these highly integrated systems are more complicated and prone to error due to the interdependencies of the individual components, the complex network (see picture) of cross-fabric interconnects, and the challenges of assembling cross-platform design data from multiple sources. To address these design obstacles, AWR Design Environment V16 provides an enhanced platform for developing MMIC and RF PCB IP. Design teams can incorporate their MMIC and RF PCB IP into electronic systems composed of ICs and interposers, PCBs, and modules from a wide array of process technologies through proven capabilities in Cadence’s EDA software portfolio, including Allegro PCB Designer for PCBs and SiPs, and the Virtuoso platform for RFICs and modules.

Read the Technical Brief

Read RF to mmWave Design for Systems (registration probably required).

Sign up for Sunday Brunch, the weekly Breakfast Bytes email.