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μWaveRiders: Cadence Microwave Office Layout Tips and Tricks

• 5 minute read

Team RF logoThe Team RF "μWaveRiders" blog series is a showcase for Cadence AWR RF products. Monthly topics will vary between Cadence AWR Design Environment release highlights, feature videos, Cadence Academic Network news (including the former AWR University Program), as well as software tips, tricks, customization, and feature spotlights. 

AWR Software Tips and Tricks: Layout in Microwave Office Software

The AWR Design Environment platform provides RF/microwave engineers with integrated high-frequency circuit (Microwave Office), system (Visual System Simulator), and EM (AXIEM 3D planar/Analyst 3D FEM) simulation technologies and design automation to develop physically realizable electronics ready for manufacturing.

Did you know you can try AWR software products today for free at Try AWR? See for yourself how easy and effective it is to streamline your design process, improve end-product performance, and accelerate time to market for MMICs, RFICs, RF PCBs, microwave modules, antennas, communications systems, radar systems, and more.

The sixth in the series of AWR Design Environment Tips and Tricks, this blog highlights optimization of layout creation and management in Cadence Microwave Office software to speed design layout.

A layout is a view of the physical representation of a circuit, in which each component of the schematic is represented by a layout cell. In the object-oriented Microwave Office software, layouts are tightly integrated with the schematics and EM structures that they represent, and are simply another view of the same circuits. Any modifications to a schematic or EM structure are automatically and instantly reflected in their corresponding layouts.

Common Keyboard Shortcuts

These keystrokes are common to layout operations in Microwave Office.

Method Action Method Action
Ctrl + T Add text Ctrl + E Draw ellipse
Ctrl + L Draw path Ctrl + P Draw polygon
Ctrl + B Draw rectangle Ctrl + G Toggle grid snap
Ctrl + O Toggle orthogonal mode Ctrl + D Start Measure tool

Coordinate Entry: While drawing a rectangle, polygon, or path, or while dragging an object or placing a cell, press Tab or the
Space bar to specify a location using relative (select Rel) or absolute coordinates in the Enter Coordinates dialog box. You can also enter (mag, angle) by selecting Polar.

Coordinate Entry

If you select Snap, the cursor moves to the closest grid location to start drawing. Coordinate entry can be mixed with normal mouse editing. For example, when drawing a polygon, you can add some of the points with the mouse and other points using coordinate entry.

Snap to Grid

Choose Draw > Grid Snap to toggle on/off the grid snap. When the grid snap is on, the drawing tools snap to the grid. Editing operations (such as moving a shape) also use the grid snap. For example, if the grid snap is set to 5 um, when moving an object it can only be moved in multiples of 5 um. You can dynamically change the snap grid by fixed multiples by selecting the snap multiple from the Grid Spacing button on the toolbar. For example, if the grid snap is 5 um and the Grid Spacing button specifies 2x, the grid snap is 10 um for the layout.

Snap shape: Press Ctrl to snap the mouse to endpoints, midpoints, and edges during dragging, moving, stretching, and measuring operations.

Turn off grid: Choose View > Snapping Grid to turn off the grid in the active window so you can copy and paste objects or take a screenshot without the grid.

Grid_on_off

Layout Selection

Select layout objects using any of these methods:

  • Shift-click to select multiple objects or remove objects from those selected.
  • Ctrl+Shift-click to cycle through a selection of overlapping shapes.
  • Click/drag to select all objects completely inside a drawn selection area.
  • Shift-click and drag to select all objects that are even partially enclosed in a drawn selection area.

Restrict items for selection by right-clicking anywhere in a layout (with nothing selected) and choosing Restrict Selection to display the Restrict Selection dialog box to turn on or off different items for selection.

Restrict Selection dialog box

Measuring Modes

Measure distances using any of these methods:

  • Display a temporary ruler to measure a distance by clicking and dragging. Choose Draw > Measure, press Ctrl + D, or click the Measure button on the toolbar to activate. When you release the mouse button the ruler goes away. While measuring, press Ctrl to snap to vertices or midpoints, or press Shift for cumulative measurements.

Standard ruler

  • Display a set layout ruler to measure a distance by clicking and dragging. Choose Draw > Layout Ruler to activate. The layout ruler remains visible and has configurable properties. To configure ruler properties, select the ruler, right-click and choose Shape Properties.

Layout Ruler

  • Display dimension lines that show the distance between two selected points when clicking and dragging. Choose Draw > Dimension Line to activate. To configure dimension line properties, select the line, right-click and choose Shape Properties.

Dimension line measurement

  • Display smart dimension lines that show the length of a polygon edge. Select a polygon and choose Draw > Parameterized Modifiers > Edge Length to activate. Edge length modifiers track any changes to the edge length and can be used to control it.

Related Resources

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Contact Us

For questions, general feedback, or suggestions for future blog topics, write to team_rf_blogs@cadence.com.