RF Design Blogs

MMSIM12.1 SpectreRF Preview of Coming Attractions! - Part 1

Greetings!

MMSIM 12.1 contains many new features to aid RF designers. Here's a preview of the changes...

Documentation Improvements

The SpectreRF User Guide is being completely rewritten and updated for MMSIM12.1.  Check it out - I'm sure you'll really like it! 

Harmonic Balance Improvements

Harmonic balance has been improved in four major ways.

  • When steady-state is detected in the tstab interval, by default, the simulation can proceed to hb without finishing the tstab simulation.
  • There is an auto mode that determines whether to run tstab or not.
  • There is an auto mode that sets the number of harmonics automatically.
  • With these automatic features enabled, harmonic balance convergence has been dramatically improved, especially in sweeps, corners, and Monte Carlo.

 The new Harmonic Balance GUI is shown below:

harmonic balance GUI

Port Component Improvement

The port component now has the ability to specify different impedances at different harmonics for the large-signal harmonic balance analysis.

 harmonic port

Fast Envelope Level1 and Level2 Improvement

Level1 and Level2 can now output all the harmonics set in the choosing analyses form, and now has the ability to output time-domain results that include all the harmonics in the waveform.

Full-Spectrum Pnoise improvements

Full-spectrum pnoise now supports all of the noisetype settings.

Noise Summary Improvements

The noise summary now has the ability to provide results for noisetype=pmjitter.

Frequency-Dependent Components

Many customers have requested ideal components for use in simulation. These components are provided to allow what-if analysis without needing details of specific structures to allow the determination of what is needed to meet the spec. In MMSIM12.1, we have introduced four new frequency-dependent components: inductor and capacitor with Q (indq and capq), DC Block (dcblock) and DC Feed (dcfeed). These are intended for use in harmonic balance and the harmonic balance small-signal analyses; however, they also work in the transient and in the small-signal ac and sp analyses. They are not meant to be used with the shooting engine at this time. These are also well documented in the new MMSIM12.1 SpectreRF manual.

Multi-Threading Shooting Large and Small-Signal Analyses

In the MMSIM 12.1 release we've measured the following improvements:

  • An average 2.5X speedup for PSS-shooting when comparing single thread to 4 thread performance, and
  • A 2X speedup when comparing single thread to 4 thread performance for the small-signal analyses that run after PSS analysis.

Streamlined RF Calculator Expressions

Direct plot enters a much simpler syntax in the ADE Outputs Pane when the "Add to Outputs" button is selected. This syntax can be used in any calculator expression.

Nport Improvements

The nport usability has been dramatically improved in MMSIM12.1. I will devote my entire next blog to that topic. Stay tuned!

Have fun simulating!!!

Best Regards,

Tawna

P.S. Make sure you are using IC6.1.5 ISR14 or later to see these new features in the environment.

 

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