Microwave Journal
www.microwavejournal.com/articles/6800-acceleware-and-cst-announce-faster-em-simulations

Acceleware and CST Announce Faster EM Simulations

August 26, 2008

Acceleware® Corp., a developer of high performance computing applications, and Computer Simulation Technology (CST), a supplier of electromagnetic (EM) simulation software, announced a new Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA)-based Acceleware solution for accelerating EM simulations with CST MICROWAVE STUDIO® (CST MWS). Trial tests of this new acceleration product have delivered performance gains of up to 40 percent compared to the current product. This faster version is compatible with current generation GPUs, delivering significant speed-ups to CST customers without having to upgrade hardware.


“CST MWS users already benefiting from our acceleration solutions will experience significant performance improvements with a simple software update,” said Ryan Schneider, CTO of Acceleware. “This combined offering enables Acceleware and CST to deliver the first ever CUDA powered solution to solve electromagnetic problems.”

The new Acceleware software uses NVIDIA’s CUDA programming language that was designed to solve complex computational problems, enabling users to access multi-core parallel processing technology. Engineers and product designers who value the CST MWS time domain solver’s efficiency, accuracy and user-friendly interface, will benefit from increased acceleration to help them tackle larger simulation problems and meet production deadlines.

“NVIDIA Tesla products in combination with CST and Acceleware’s software provide an accelerated design environment for end users to reduce the time spent simulating products,” said Andy Keane, general manager of the GPU Computing Business at NVIDIA. “Acceleware’s use of CUDA in its libraries to harness the parallel architecture of the GPU will provide compelling value and considerable speed-ups for designers who frequently perform EM simulations.”

Acceleware’s CUDA enabled solvers take advantage of highly parallel NVIDIA compute hardware to offer performance gains while performing lengthy EM design simulations. Users will be able run their CST MWS simulations even faster while supporting the same accelerated feature sets that designers use today including open boundaries, lossy metals, Thin Sheet Technology (TST)™, Perfect Boundary Approximation (PBA)®, dispersive materials and far field monitors. Single-, dual- and quad-card configurations are supported.

“Acceleware’s hardware acceleration solutions have been well received by our customers. Achieving an accurate solution in a shorter time frame is instrumental in bringing their products to market earlier,” commented Jonathan Oakley, VP of sales and marketing, CST of America. “We are really excited by the prospect of offering them an even faster, CUDA enhanced solution as part of their regular maintenance.”

The CUDA enabled solver is expected to be available by the end of 2008. CST and Acceleware end users will benefit from this development as part of their maintenance contract. All 30 series products will be supported. The range of hardware acceleration products may be extended in the future.