Alcatel-Lucent eliminates file translation bottleneck between printed circuit board (PCB) and high frequency design tools

Article details design process improvements and time/cost savings at the Platform Hardware Center in France

THE STORY: RF and microwave circuit design at Alcatel-Lucent's Platform Hardware Center (PHC) was long hampered because two separate component libraries had to be maintained so the design footprint could be synchronized and verified with both Mentor Graphics PCB software tools and AWR's Microwave Office® high frequency design software. After data was transferred from Microwave Office software to Mentor Graphics Expedition™, there was no way to import the microwave schematic or symbols into Mentor's tools or to export circuit modifications performed in Expedition back into the Microwave Office software.

AWR Connected™ for Mentor Graphics Expedition, for which the PHC was a beta site, overcomes this bottleneck by providing real-time bidirectional transfer of schematic and layout between these two tools and significantly reduced design time. There is no library duplication because the software automatically creates a complete AWR library file directly from the Mentor tools and automatically updates the library file whenever there is a Mentor-invoked change. The schematic and layout can be sent from the Microwave Office environment to Mentor tools, modified, and sent back to Microwave Office. As a result, the design teams know they always have the correct footprints and library when performing an RF simulation.