eskiyerli wrote on Mar 18th, 2009, 5:17am:The local distributor has asked me to attend a presentation
Attend a presentation obediently. It can be never waste of time.
http://web.awrcorp.com/content/Downloads/Whats-New-in-MWO2008.pdfhttp://web.awrcorp.com/content/Downloads/Whats-New-in-AO2008.pdfOn the other hand, I always feel that presentations of our local Cadence sales are waste of time especially about CIC products.
But this is true for recent our local Agilent sales. Presentations of Agilent were very valueable previously.
Presentations of Cadence are not valueable unchangeably both previously and now.
I don't know about Mentor since Eldo is not used in my country.
eskiyerli wrote on Mar 18th, 2009, 5:17am:The natural candidates are Cadence/Spectre-RF, Mentor/Eldo-RF and ADS.
Integration of Agilent ADSsim to Cadence Design Environment, that is, RFDE or Dynamic Link, is terminated at ADS2009 which released very recently.
New Agilent simulator for Cadence Design Environment is GoldenGate.
http://www.agilent.com/about/newsroom/presrel/2009/23feb-em09039.htmlhttp://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/product.jspx?nid=-34257.0.00&cc=US&lc=en...http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/product.jspx?nid=-34269.0.00&cc=US&lc=en...http://edocs.soco.agilent.com/display/gg432/GoldenGate+RFIC+Simulator+Release+No...http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1232855139I run ADSsim, GoldenGate and HSPICE in Cadence ADE as well as Spectre.
But if I utilize full ability of ADSsim, I run ADSsim in ADS Design Framework.
eskiyerli wrote on Mar 18th, 2009, 5:17am:Does Analog/Microwave office offer anything superior compared to the rest?
Any ideas, pointers, experience would be very helpful.
You have to consider the following two issues separately.
(1) Design Framework
(2) Simulator Engine.
Also the following issue is important.
(3) Money cost which is required as new introduction and support contract.
Simulator engines used for Analog/Microwave office are MWO native, Aplac and HSPICE.
We can't run MWO native and Aplac in Cadence ADE.
Simulation speed of HB Analysis of MWO native and Aplac is a little faster than ADSsim.
But for large circuit, GoldenGate is very faster than any of MWO native, Aplac and ADSsim.
Also see the followings.
http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1066074560/5#5, Ken's claim about Spectre and ADS is not correct.
http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1205223090http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1227668750But MWO native and Aplac don't have envelope analysis.
They also don't have Verilog-A implementation although recent version of them might have Verilog-A implementation.
And you can not do co-simulation with Logic Simulator such as Cadence NCSim by using Verilog-D or Verilog-AMS.
On the other hand all of Spectre, Eldo, ADSsim and GoldenGate have ability of co-simulation with Logic Simulator using Verilog-AMS.
Remarkable features of Analog/Microwave office are:
- Easy extract EM coupling between components or lines for simulation.
- Tuning ability which is easy to use and very fast.
- High reliability and performance of Aplac Simulator Engine although Aplac is minor.
- Developed by real and true RF experts, this is also true for Agilent Tools. But this is never true for Cadence and Mentor.
So Analog/Microwave office is far superior than Cadence Spectre for RF applications.
But these are available only in Design Framework of Analog/Microwave office.
They are not available in both Cadence Framework and Mentor Framework.
We can't use Analog/Microwave office seamlessly with Cadence Framework or Mentor Framework.
Supported PDK are very limited.
Maybe salesmen of AWR will insist that OpenAccess can resolve this issue. But I don't think so.
If you have already invested many money to Cadence Tools, you should continue to use Cadence Design Framework.
But about simulator, Spectre is never best solution, if we consider it's perfomance compared to money cost.
http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1208165444I want to introduce BDA's FastSpice in my design environment.
http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1183646486/11#11For RF applications there are still many many bugs in Cadence Spectre.
http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1208334972http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1231076499About postprocessing ability for RF applications, Agilent Tool is most powerful and superior.
http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216663909