High-Performance Simulation of Circuits

Cadence Spectre RF Option provides RF analyses for the design and verification of RFIC and MMIC designs such as mixers, transceivers, power amplifiers, and high-speed analog designs, including dividers, switched capacitors, filters, and phased-lock loops (PLLs).

Spectre RF Option also supports simulation with S-parameters of electromagnetic (EM) elements and application-centric analyses like wireless analysis for system-level performance evaluation using standard-compliant signal sources. Tight integration into the Cadence Virtuoso ADE Suite delivers ease of use for simple and complex use models with multiple tests for multiple conditions.

Its support for Virtuoso Studio RF cockpit offers designers a library of microwave design elements, piece-wise harmonic balance analyses, X-parameters, large signal stability analyses, and harmonic load/source pull analyses.

Maximize RF Circuit Simulation Productivity

Comprehensive Analyses Support

Supports frequency and time domains for RFIC design and verification

Scalability

Perform RF analyses of large post-layout designs using parallelized multi-threading and distributed solvers

Ease of Use

RFIC design integrated into the familiar Virtuoso ADE environment with an expanded library of microwave design elements

Complete RFIC Design and Verification Capabilities

The Spectre RF Option includes two production-proven RF solvers: a harmonic balance (HB) solver that uses the frequency-domain and a time-domain based one that uses shooting Newton methods for high-performance simulation and verification.

Frequency and Time-Domain Analyses for RF Circuits

  • HB periodic steady-state analysis for single and multi-tone frequency-based designs
  • Shooting Newton periodic steady-state analysis for time-based designs
  • HB and Shooting Newton-based small signal analyses, including AC noise, distortion, xf (transfer function), and stb (stability) to assist designers in exploring the design space and optimizing their designs
  • Distributed processing support for HB and periodic small signal (PSS) analyses, improving turnaround time and leveraging machines in the compute farm for large memory footprint simulations
  • Golden reference for oscillator and strong-arm latch noise analysis

Simulating Modulated Signals

  • Envelope following analyses simulate complex modulated waveforms of RF systems
  • Rich library of sources and measurements for verifying compliance with wireless standards
  • Powerful, fast envelope modeling technology for design verification across corners and process variation
  • Automated set-up and post-processing for analysis of wireless standard compliance

Time-Domain Simulation with S-Parameter Data

  • Validate the quality of S-parameter data for simulation during EM extraction or prior to Spectre simulation
  • Create shareable rational fit models (RFMs), for fast, high-capacity time domain simulation of circuits containing S-parameter data

Microwave Design Verification

  • Default simulator in Virtuoso Studio RF
  • Complete library of microwave design elements
  • Piece-wise HB analysis for higher efficiency
  • X-parameter simulation for modeling non-linear behavior
  • Cadence Visual System Simulator (VSS) co-simulation