| About
IE3D
IE3D is a full-wave, method-of-moments based electromagnetic
simulator solving the current distribution on 3D and multilayer
structures of general shape. It has been widely used
in the design of MMICs, RFICs, LTCC circuits, microwave/millimeter-wave
circuits, IC interconnects and packages, HTS circuits, patch
antennas, wire antennas, and other RF/wireless antennas.
If you are a circuit or antenna
designer looking for accurate, efficient and economical tool,
IE3D is the right choice for you. |
| IE3D's
Features |
1.
Modeling true 3D metallic structures in multiple dielectric
layers in open, closed or periodic boundary.
There is no limitation on the shape and orientation of the metallic
structures. IE3D can model true 3D structures such as conical
vias, conical helix antennas, wire bonds and other 3D structures
of general shape. IE3D can build and simulate a wide range of
planar and 3D microwave and RF structures. |
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2.
High efficiency, high accuracy and low cost electromagnetic
simulation tool on PCs with Windows based graphic interface.
Running on PCs, our simulator is faster than other field solvers
on high end workstations. |
| 3.
The MS-Windows based menu-driven graphic interface allows interactive
construction of 3D and multilayer metallic structures as a set
of polygons. Numerous editing capabilities are implemented to
ease the construction and manipulation of polygons and vertices.
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| 4.
Built-in library for construction of complicated structures,
such as circles, rings, spheres, rectangular and circular spirals,
cylindrical and conical vias, cylindrical and conical helices.
You can build complicated 3D and multilayer structures in seconds
or minutes. |
5.
Automatic generation of non-uniform mesh with rectangular
and triangular cells.
Numerical
simulation requires sub-dividing a circuit into small cells.
Both rectangular and triangular cells are employed in IE3D.
Rectangular cells are used in the regular region for the best
efficiency (each rectangular cell is equivalent to at least
2 triangles). Triangular cells are utilized to fit the irregular
boundary. The efficiency of rectangular cells and flexibility
of triangular cells are combined to yield the best result.
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6.
Automatic Edge Cell feature makes IE3D yield expert results
for novice users.
It
is well-known that current concentrates on the edges of metallic
strips. Precise modeling of the high current concentration along
the edges is critical to accurate simulation of printed circuits,
especially coupled structures. Adding small cells along the
edges usually can guarantee simulation accuracy. How to add
edge cells and simultaneously minimize the number of cells in
a simulation has been a skillful task. Starting from the IE3D
3.15, we have an option to create small cells on the edges automatically.
Users of little numerical modeling knowledge can get accurate
results easily with the automatic edge cell feature.
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Non-uniform
mesh with rectangular and triangular cells in IE3D yields
high accuracy result with minimum number of cells |
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Uniform mesh
in other simulators creates large number of redundant
cells even for simple structures |
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7.
Flexible de-embedding of circuit parameters.
A few different
de-embedding schemes implemented into IE3D to achieve accurate
and flexible parameter extraction. There is no limitation on
where the ports are defined. The Extension de-embedding schemes
allow fast and accurate parameter extraction. The Waves de-embedding
schemes use the pure electromagnetic wave concepts and yield
the most accurate results. The Localized de-embedding schemes
allow parameter extraction in highly packed structures.
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8.
Modeling structures with finite ground planes and differential
feed structures.
Most field solvers
assume infinite ground planes in solving circuit and antenna
problems. In many microwave and RF applications, you may not
be able to find a big ground plane where you can define 0 potential.
Therefore, infinite ground plane assumption is not applicable.
IE3D is able to model structures with finite ground planes.
The key to modeling finite ground planes is the differential
feed. Most of the de-embedding schemes in IE3D can be used for
differential feed. |
9.
Accurate modeling of true 3D metallic structures and metal thickness.
Most method-of-moments
based simulators assume infinitely thin metallic structures
in the modeling. The thickness information is only for correction
of metallic loss. They cannot model the structural effects of
metallic thickness. IE3D can optionally allow users to model
the thickness exactly.
For wide microstrip structures, current
concentrates on the bottom surface of the metallic strips. Good
result can be obtained for wide microstrip structures without
modeling the thickness effect. For stripline and suspended stripline
structures, current concentrates on both the bottom and top
surfaces of the metallic strips. Without modeling the structural
effects of the thickness, the simulation result will be much
off the actual result. IE3D can model current on the 4 sides
of a metallic strip exactly. It opens the door for single pass
design of stripline filters. |
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| 10.
Electromagnetic optimization.
IE3D
allows users to define the shape of a circuit as optimization
variables. The built-in optimizer will be able to optimize
the shape of a structure for best performance. The implementation
of the GeneticEM optimizer allows robust and efficient electromagnetic
optimization for a large number of optimization variables
and goals. Displayed below is the application of the GeneticEM
optimizer. The IE3D simulation result and the measured result
on a manually tuned hairpin filter are shown in (A) and (B),
showing perfect agreement. The filter is de-tuned to yield
a bad performance in (C). The de-tuned filter is re-optimized
using the GerneticEM optimizer automatically in (D). |
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(A)
The response of a manually tuned hair-pin
filter |
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(B)
The measured frequency response of the filter |
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(C).
The response of the de-tuned filter for testing. |
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(D)
The GeneticEMTM result on the de-tuned filter.
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| 11.
Modeling of thin,
lossy and high dielectric constant substrates.
Thin dielectric substrates
are used quite frequently in MMIC circuits such as MIM capacitors
and spiral inductors. IE3D is specially formulated for modeling
dielectric layers as thin as 0.1 microns.
High dielectric constant
substrate is used in HTS filter and circuit design. Thin dielectric
layers with dielectric constant as high as 1000 are used in
the design of HTS circuits. IE3D provides accurate modeling
of high dielectric constant materials. IE3D also has accurate
modeling for the HTS printed strips and ground planes.
Doping is used in semiconductor
process to control the conductivity of the dielectric material.
IE3D is formulated with complex dielectric permittivity, permeability
and conductivity. IE3D allows accurate modeling of lossy dielectric
material.
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| 12.
Mixed electromagnetic and nodal analysis.
With the capability to de-embed circuit parameters
locally, IE3D is able to model highly packed circuits with
lumped elements. For a highly packed circuit, IE3D is able
to embed the s-parameters of the lumped elements into the
full-wave simulation. |
| 13.
Efficient matrix solvers.
???nbsp;
The solution time for full matrix solver (FMS) is proportional
to N3. Symmetrical matrix solvers (SMS and SMSi)
reduces the RAM requirement to half. Partial matrix solver
(PMS) only considers the strong coupling and reduces the RAM
requirement and simulation time significantly. Iterative matrix
solver (IMS) performs iterations based upon the PMS? result.
The simulation time for PMS and IMS is proportional to N2.
It saves time and yields accurate results. The newly implemented
AIMS II and AIMS III can solve large planar structures using
much less time and RAM. For example, simulating an 8-by-8
patch antenna array with feed network may take 2 GB RAM and
more than 10 hours on the advanced symmetrical matrix solver
SMSi (default matrix solver on IE3D). However, the AIMS III
matrix solver can solve the same problem with the same accuracy
in 1 hour using less than 120 MB RAM.
Benchmark
on Matrix Solvers |
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The
current distribution on the 8-by-8 patch array.
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14.
Visual display of S, Y, and Z-parameters.
IE3D comes
with the MODUA post-processor for display of S, Y, and Z-parameters
in data list, rectangular graphs and Smith Chart. MODUA is also
a circuit simulator. A user can graphically connect different
S-parameter modules and lumped elements together and perform
a nodal simulation. |
15.
Extracting SPICE or RLC-equivalent circuits.
The primary simulation results of IE3D are the S-parameters.
The S-parameters can optionally converted into a SPICE netlist.
The SPICE netlist can be imported into a SPICE simulator for
time-domain simulation. |
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| 16.
3D and 2D display of current distribution, radiation patterns
and near field.
The CURVIEW post-processor of IE3D provides colorful 3D and
2D display of current distribution and radiation patterns.
CURVIEW also provides complete information on the directivity,
return loss, efficiency, axial ratio, 3 dB beamwidth, and
RCS. It allows a user to specify the excitation and load to
investigate the radiation of loaded antennas. The colorful
pictures can be saved into files for design documentation.
The post-processor provides display of linear and circular
polarization patterns and axial ratio. |
17.
Magnetic current modeling of slot structures.
For slotted structures such as coplanar waveguides (CPWs), CPW
antennas and slot-coupled patch antennas, IE3D can model the
electric field distribution on the slots. It saves simulation
time and memory. |
18.
"Simulate and Find Excitation" feature allows monitoring of
array power distribution on network.
The "Simulate and Find Excitation" feature is special for design
of antenna arrays and structures with complicated lumped elements.
It allows the users to access the power, voltage and current
distribution at each port of the structure you are simulating.
It is extremely valuable for antenna array designers because
it can tell you how good your design is. The feature is also
good for the design of structures with lumped elements. For
example, you can find out the radiation pattern of an antenna
with complicated lumped elements. |
19.
Flexible utility features and built-in circuit simulator.
IE3D
comes with a simple and user-friendly circuit simulator. It
includes many simple and sophisticated utilities such as finding
characteristic impedance of a transmission line, creating the
s-parameters of an idealized transmission line, and back simulation
to extract the s-parameters of part of the circuit from a whole
circuit. |
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The
3D mapped radiation pattern of a 5-by-5 antenna array.
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The smooth
frequency response of the multiple-resonance patch antenna
in (a) takes 321 data points. The adaptive Intelli-Fit
can extract the 321 data points using 23 data points
in (b). The procedure is adaptively and automatically
done without any user interference. It is always accurate
and robust with absolutely no limitation. |
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20.
Adaptive Intelli-Fit scheme provides fast and accurate simulation
results for broadband structures.
Intelli-Fit
is a proprietary curve-fitting scheme employing both mathematical
and physical principles. It can extract detailed frequency response
of a complicated structure with multiple resonances by using
the simulation results at just a few frequency points. We have
implemented the adaptive Intelli-Fit scheme into the simulation
engine. For a specific simulation, the simulator adaptively
selects the frequency points for actual field simulation. The
detailed frequency response with multiple resonances is then
extracted out. The scheme is very robust, efficient and accurate.
It is easy to use and has no limitation. |
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A
lead frame with wire bonds in high speed digital circuit packaging
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IE3D |