Agilent Technologies Inc. announced the release of the latest version of its RFIC simulation software, GoldenGate. This release represents an expansion in RFIC simulation coverage for wireless communications products, with 5x transient simulation speed improvements and new mixed-signal simulation capabilities, resulting in shorter product development times.


“RFIC designers have limited simulation coverage today - simulating a fraction of what they need to before the tape-out deadline,” said Marc Petersen, product marketing manager with Agilent’s EEsof EDA division. “They are missing design problems and incurring costly re-spins. GoldenGate 4.2 enables more simulation coverage with increased speed and capacity, and takes advantage of new ways to uncover RF/mixed-signal problems early in the design cycle.”

In RFIC design, transient (SPICE) simulations provide time-domain results. GoldenGate 4.2 features improvements to transient simulations, achieving faster speeds of 2x to 4x on single-core computers and typically 5x for quad-core computers. The transient improvements also help speed up the frequency-domain simulation process. Faster simulations allow for more extensive use of statistical design throughout the RFIC design cycle, without compromising tight development schedules.

Digital State Sweeping (DSS), a new GoldenGate 4.2 feature, provides an automated solution to the problem of sweeping an RF design through its many digital control states. Performing the sweep manually is a tedious simulation task. DSS automates operational verification of the control states and provides interface and connectivity testing as well as digital-RF connectivity debugging, allowing digital and RF teams to work concurrently.

Agilent’s GoldenGate 4.2 also includes:

• the ability to perform mixed-signal simulations on a combination of RF and digital circuits represented by Verilog-AMS blocks;
• new wireless sources from the Agilent Ptolemy simulator, including transmit/receive waveforms for 802.11(WiFi), 802.16 (WiMAX™/WiMAN), TDSCMDA, 3GPPFDD, and custom, user-defined wireless sources, and;
• improved Monte Carlo algorithms (Latin Hypercube Sampling and Hammersley Sequence Sampling) for faster Monte Carlo coverage with 5-10x fewer trials.

Agilent’s GoldenGate Release 4.2 is expected to be available in early May, with prices starting at approximately $42,000.