TAMPA, FL -- AWR and Ansys have added HFSS to the Microwave Office high frequency circuit design software flow, creating an integrated tool for simulating microwave circuits.

With this design flow, Microwave Office users can readily access HFSS for analysis of EM fields and coupling of 3-D structures like passive components, bumps, bond wires, and pins which are essential to successfully designing and realizing microwave circuits like monolithic microwave integrated circuits , densely-populated RF circuit boards and multifunction modules.

The software tools use AWR's EM Socket open standard interface, which enables AWR users to access a broad range of electromagnetic tools from within the Microwave Office design environment. The EM Socket architecture also allows AWR Microwave Office users to essentially simulate EM structures with a single mouse click using either AWR's AXIEM 3D planar method of moments solver or Analyst 3D finite element method EM software.

In addition to enabling Ansys HFSS 3D EM simulation capabilities from within the NI/AWR Design Environment, the connection allows the resulting 3D layered format exported from the EM Socket interface to connect to the Ansys multiphysics portfolio. That suite includes Ansys SIwave for signal/power integrity analysis and Ansys Icepak for thermal characterization.