Zeland Software, Inc.

39120 Argonaut Way, PMB 499, Fremont, CA 94538, Tel: 510-623-7162, Fax: 510-623-7135, E-mail: zeland@zeland.com, Web Site: http://www.zeland.com

IE3D Making no compromise between accuracy and capability

IE3D is a method-of-moments (MoM) based full-wave electromagnetic simulator for use in design and optimization of 3D and multilayer high-frequency structures of general shape. Typical applications include MMICs and RF ICs in microstrip or CPW, microwave/millimeter-wave circuits in microstrip, CPW, striplines, suspended microstrip/striplines, or coaxial lines, high-speed digital circuitry, 3D interconnects, IC packages, PCB, MCM, HTS circuits and filters, wire antennas, microstrip antennas, conical and cylindrical helix antennas, inverted-F antennas, antennas on finite ground planes, and other RF antennas.
IE3D Features: 1. Modeling true 3D metallic structures in multiple dielectric layers in open, closed, or periodic boundary conditions. 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. Using IE3D, users can build and simulate a wide range of planar and 3D microwave and RF structures.

2.

Accurate modeling of true 3D metallic structures and metal thickness. Most method-of-moments 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 microstrip/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.

A circular spiral with finite-thickness metallization 3. 4. 5. 6.

A lead frame with wire bonds in high-speed digital circuit packaging

High-efficiency, high-accuracy and low-cost electromagnetic simulation tools on PCs with Windows based graphic interface. Running on PCs, our simulator is faster than other field solvers on high-end workstations. 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. 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. Automatic non-uniform mesh generator with rectangular and triangular cells. Numerical simulation requires 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 triangular ones). 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.

7.

Automatic Edge Cell feature makes IE3D yield expert results for novice users. It is well known that current is concentrating 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 work. Starting from 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.

Non-uniform rectangular and triangular mesh in IE3D yields high-accuracy result with minimum number of cells 8. Flexible de-embedding of circuit parameters.

Uniform mesh in other simulators creates large number of redundant cells even for simple structures

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 deembedding 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. 9. 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 deembedding schemes in IE3D can be used for differential feed. 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 of 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).

(A) The simulated response of a manually tuned hairpin filter

(B) The measured response of the filter

(C). The simulated response of the de-tuned filter. 11. Modeling of thin, lossy and high dielectric constant substrates.

(D) The optimized result of the de-tuned filter by GeneticEMTM.

Thin dielectric substrates are used quite frequently in MMIC such as MIM capacitors and spiral inductors. IE3D is specially formulated for modeling dielectric layers as thin as 0.1 microns. High dielectric constant substrates are 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 constant, permeability and conductivity. IE3D allows accurate modeling of lossy dielectric material. 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.

(The original LNA structure and simulation model provided by Prof. Al Freundorfer of the Queens University, Canada) 13. Efficient matrix solvers. The solution time for full matrix solver (FMS) is proportional to N3. Symmetrical matrix solvers (SMS and SMSi) reduce 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 PMSs 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 using 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.

The current distribution on the 8-by-8 patch array. 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 for structures. The primary simulation results of IE3D are the S-parameters. The S-parameters can optionally be converted into a SPICE netlist. The SPICE netlist can be imported into a SPICE simulator for time domain simulation.

16.

Magnetic current modeling of slot structures. For slotted structures such as coplanar waveguides (CPWs), CPW antennas and slot-coupled patch antennas, we can model the electric field distribution on the aperture of the slots. It saves simulation time and memory.

17.

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.

18.

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.

IE3D simulation of a helix antenna on a handset 19. Flexible utility features and built-in circuit simulator.

3D mapped radiation pattern of a 5-by-5 antenna array.

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 for an idealized transmission line, and back simulation to extract the s-parameters of part of the circuit from a whole circuit. 20. Adaptive Intelli-Fit scheme provides fast and accurate simulation results for wide-band structures. The 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 easy to use and has no limitation.

The smooth frequency response of the multi-resonance patch antenna in (a) takes 321 data points. The adaptive Intelli-Fit can extract the 321 data points using the 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.