μWaveRiders: Cadence AWR Design Environment Schematic/System Diagram Tips & Tricks

22 Nov 2021 • 7 minute read

The 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. To receive notifications about new blogs in this series, click Subscribe Now and enter your email address in the Subscriptions box.

AWR Software Tips & Tricks: Element Placement in Circuit Schematics and System Diagrams

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.

The second in the series of AWR Design Environment Tips and Tricks, this blog highlights element placement in RF schematics and system diagrams for novice users, with actions to speed design creation and optimize use of AWR software.

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.

Elements Browser

After creating, importing, or linking to a circuit schematic or system diagram in the AWR Design Environment workspace, you can add elements from the Elements Browser, which contains a comprehensive inventory of circuit elements for building schematics, system blocks for building system diagrams, and installed libraries for both. In the lower pane of the Elements Browser you can specify how category models display by right-clicking and choosing between large icons, small icons, list, or detail views.

Adding Elements

There are several ways to add an element to a schematic or system diagram:

In the Elements Browser, navigate to the element category and applicable sub-category, select a model from the lower pane of the Elements Browser, and drag it into a schematic or system diagram window.
Press Ctrl + L or choose Draw > More Elements to display the Add Circuit Element or Add System Block dialog box where you can scroll to select, or type to filter by element name, description, or path. After selection, your cursor moves to the schematic or system diagram window for placement of the element.
Copy and paste a model from another schematic or system diagram.

Placing Elements

While adding an element to the schematic or system diagram, you can:

Rotate the element counter-clockwise 90-degrees per right-click before clicking to place.
Ctrl-right-click to mirror about the Y-axis before clicking to place.
Shift-right-click to mirror about the X-axis before clicking to place.

Element Options Dialog Box

The Element Options dialog box includes Parameters, User Attributes, Symbol, Layout, Model Options, and other tabs specific to the element. To access the Element Options dialog box, double-click an element in a schematic or system diagram window.

Element Options dialog box

The Parameters tab allows you to modify element parameter values, enable parameter values for tuning and optimization, and specify other options about the element and its parameters.
The User Attributes tab allows you to assign user-defined properties such as cost, power, weight, and current limit.
The Symbol tab allows you to choose another element symbol.
The Layout tab allows you to specify a layout cell other than the default for a schematic element.
The Model Options tab allows you to specify time domain, EM extraction, or multi-rate harmonic balance simulation options for elements in a schematic.

Editing Elements

Select an element and right-click its symbol (not the parameter text) to display a context menu to:

Choose Properties to edit element properties/parameters in the Element Options dialog box.
Toggle Enable to disable or enable the element in the schematic or system diagram.
Swap the element with another element.
Rotate, Flip, or Freeze in place the element.
Zoom In/Out, View Area, View All to change the view.
Display the Help for the element.

Swapping Elements

To swap one element for another, double-click a model name in the schematic or system diagram and type a new name. For example, double-click "RES" and type "CAP" to replace a resistor with a capacitor. Any parameters that match by name are preserved.

To swap multiple elements, select all of the elements to replace, then in the Elements Browser find the element with which to replace them. Right-click that element and choose Replace Schematic Selection. The Preserve Parameters option retains any common parameter values while Replace Parameters uses the element's default parameters (useful when replacing with library elements).

Editing Element Parameters

Editing parameters In addition to editing parameter values in the Element Options dialog box, you can edit parameters directly on a circuit schematic or system diagram:

Double-click a model parameter value to display a text box for editing.
Press Tab to move to the next parameter and Shift+Tab to move to the previous parameter.
Edit the same parameter for multiple elements by selecting all of the elements to edit, right-clicking any of the elements and choosing Properties. Edits on the Parameters tab are applied to all common (by name) parameters.

Adding Subcircuits

To use hierarchy in a schematic design, you add subcircuits into your current design.

Add a subcircuit to a schematic window by right-click dragging and dropping a schematic or EM document from the Project Browser onto an open schematic window, or by pressing Ctrl + K to display the Add Subcircuit Element dialog box.
View subcircuit contents in the same window by pressing the Shift key while double-clicking to open the subcircuit.
View subcircuit contents in a new window by pressing the Ctrl key while double-clicking to open the subcircuit.

Schematic/Diagram Connectivity

There are a number of ways to automatically or manually manage element connections in a circuit schematic or system diagram:

When placing or positioning an element, alignment guidelines automatically display when the element nodes align with another element. To auto-add a wire between the nodes, press the Shift key when placing the element.
Start a wire from the middle of another wire or node by right-clicking to select the wire and then choosing Add Wire.
Remove a previous point by right-clicking while you add a wire.
Control wire direction after starting a wire by changing the location of the cursor relative to the starting point of the wire.
Disconnect an element and delete its wires by pressing the Ctrl key while dragging the element.
Set auto wire deletion by selecting the Auto wire cleanup check box on the Project Options dialog box Schematics/Diagrams tab.
When deleting an element, the wires connected to it are also deleted.
Highlight a net by selecting a wire, right-clicking and choosing Highlight On to highlight a net through hierarchy in a different color.
Create a bus net by selecting a wire, right-clicking and choosing Create BusNet.
Edit net properties in a circuit schematic by selecting a wire, right-clicking and choosing Edit Net Properties.
Move an element orthogonally only by pressing the Shift key while dragging the element to constrain its movement to horizontal and vertical directions from the original position.

Related Resources

Blogs

Videos

Element Palette Display

Examples

Contact Us

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

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