AWR Corp., the innovation leader in high-frequency EDA software, and ANSYS, Inc., a global leader and innovator of engineering simulation software, announced today that they have integrated ANSYS HFSS™ into AWR’s Microwave Office high frequency circuit design software. This integration unites the industry standard for full-wave electromagnetic (EM) field simulation and NI AWR Design Environment™/Microwave Office to quickly and accurately simulate microwave circuits.   

With this design flow, Microwave Office users can readily access HFSS for analysis of EM fields and coupling of 3D structures like passive components, bumps, bond wires, and pins which are essential to successfully designing and realizing microwave circuits like monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), densely-populated RF circuit boards and multifunction modules.

The link between the two software tools is leveraged from  AWR’s innovative EM Socket™ open standard interface, which enables AWR users to access a broad range of electromagnetic (EM) tools from within the Microwave Office design environment. The EM Socket architecture also allows AWR Microwave Office users to essentially simulate EM structures with a single mouse click using either AWR’s AXIEM 3D planar method of moments solver or Analyst™ 3D finite element method EM software.

In addition to enabling ANSYS HFSS 3D EM simulation capabilities from within the NI/AWR Design Environment, the connection allows the resulting 3D layered format exported from the EM Socket interface to connect to the ANSYS multiphysics portfolio. That suite includes ANSYS SIwave for signal/power integrity analysis and ANSYS Icepak for thermal characterization.

“This dynamic combination of two industry-leading applications is exactly what our customers have been asking for,” said Larry Williams, director of product management at ANSYS. “ANSYS has revolutionized the simulation of 3-D electromagnetics while AWR is a world leader in microwave circuits. I’m confident that this new offering will help our joint customers create exciting new products that will amaze the market.”

“Collaborating with third-party firms to expand both the breadth and depth of technology available within the NI AWR Design Environment has been a mainstay of our product offering,” said Sherry Hess, vice-president of marketing at AWR.  “The ease with which our Microwave Office customers can now access HFSS technology will indeed be very welcome news.”

To learn more about the AWR Microwave Office / ANSYS HFSS flow, attend the joint MicroApp talk, A Streamlined Design Flow Featuring AWR Microwave Office and ANSYS HFSS presented at 11:10am ET on Tuesday, June 3rd in the IMS2014 MicroApp Theater or visit AWR in Booth 633 or Ansys in Booth 1433.