Overview
Accelerate RF PCB Products to Market
PCB systems targeting wireless communications and sensing applications must integrate RF technology with mixed-signal electronics. Offering a layout-driven methodology for developing complex RF PCBs, the Cadence RF design solution, including Microwave Office and Visual System Simulator (VSS) design software, Clarity 3D Solver, and Allegro X PCB Designer, supports RF PCB-based design and integration with accurate modeling of PCB transmission media, complete PCB system analysis, and manufacturing signoff.
Key Benefits
Comprehensive RF PCB Solution from System Planning Through Design Verification and Tapeout
Optimize RF Lineups
Quickly optimize overall performance with system-level budget analysis and component behavioral models to perform rapid design studies
Accelerate Physical Design
Streamline the product development process with powerful design entry, automation, and filter/matching network synthesis to start your initial design concepts
Simulate Prototypes
Develop embedded passives and distributed RF components in any PCB material stack-up with a comprehensive library of transmission lines, vendor components, and frequency-domain simulations
Design with Confidence
Advanced 3D planar EM analysis provides in-situ S-parameter extraction for more accurate PCB simulations and design verification before manufacturing.
Seamless Workflows
Platform interoperability ensures seamless workflow for RF IP integration within mixed-signal manufacturing layout tools
CAPABILITIES
Design and Integrate RF/Microwave IP in PCB Systems
As smart devices adopt RF technology to maintain a connection to other devices or networks via wireless protocols, engineers need the tools to develop and integrate radio front-ends into their PCB designs. High-frequency design is more complex than standard PCB design. It requires careful consideration of many factors, including component placement, trace routing, proper RF grounding, and isolation, to achieve the desired performance. Cadence RF design software offers circuit simulation with specialized RF/microwave measurements, in-design EM and thermal analysis, and PCB workflows to reduce turnaround time while ensuring product reliability, manufacturing, and first-pass success.
Powerful design entry with concurrent schematic/layout editing capture in Cadence Microwave Office design software lets you define circuit details for simulation while defining the physical layout to reduce your PCB footprint. Design automation and synthesis tools accelerate the design and simulation process by reducing manual engineering efforts, while powerful scripting supports customized workflows to enhance productivity further. After simulation and design optimization, you can export production-ready data for manufacturing or intelligent design data that can be imported export production-ready data for manufacturing or intelligent design data that can be imported and integrated into an Allegro PCB layout design.
RF/microwave PCB designs rely on specialized measurements, including small-signal transmission and reflection parameters (S-parameters), power/gain compression, and intermodulation distortion due to large-signal stimuli. The harmonic balance simulator in Microwave Office software provides frequency-domain analysis of both linear and nonlinear networks. For digitally modulated RF signals used in communications and radar systems, Microwave Office and VSS software offer advanced circuit envelope analysis to simulate performance metrics such as adjacent-channel power-ratio (ACPR), error-vector magnitude (EVM), and bit-error rate (BER).
Simulating RF PCBs with surface-mount components requires accurate high-frequency vendor models that capture high-frequency electrical responses, including parasitic behavior leading to signal coupling and resonances that impair performance and nonlinear characteristics resulting in spurious harmonics generation. Cadence collaborates with industry component manufacturers to provide RF model libraries for commercially available discrete devices in compact circuit models, S-parameters, and/or behavioral models.
EM analysis provides full-wave S-parameter extraction that captures potentially harmful signal coupling and resonances that can negatively impact RF performance. RF engineers can perform accurate design verification before PCB manufacturing with in-design EM/circuit co-simulation between Microwave Office software and Cadence EM analysis tools such as Clarity 3D Solver. Microwave Office software also supports hierarchical EM/circuit co-simulation to support EM analysis across chip, package, and board to provide performance results of the complete integrated system.
Microwave Office/VSS software combines with Allegro X PCB Designer to bring your innovative wireless designs to life. With a comprehensive, powerful, and easy-to-use suite of tools, you can effortlessly tackle the simplest and most complex projects. The Allegro X constraint-driven environment provides real-time visual feedback and ensures the functionality and manufacturability of your PCBs while reducing design time.
By starting with Allegro X PCB Designer-sourced component parts from an organization’s approved bill of materials (BOM) and process technologies, the RF engineering and layout teams improve design handoff efficiency/reliability and reduce the amount of back and forth necessary to reconcile differences between RF design and manufacturing requirements.
PRODUCTS
Cadence Products for RF PCB System Development
Cadence software offers a leading front-to-back RF PCB design flow with an innovative user interface and complete integration of design entry, simulation, and physical design tools that enhance productivity and ensure first-pass success.