RF CORNER

On this page our RF Designers will share with you their thoughts on interesting tools they use, links to articles they find interesting and other bits that RF Designers can find useful and interesting.

OUR SIMULATION SOFTWARE: AWR Microwave Office

Paul, our Senior RF Design Engineer, shares his thoughts on Microwave Office design suite.

Microwave Office design suite is the industry's fastest growing microwave design platform and has revolutionized the communications design world by providing users with a superior choice. Built on the unique AWR high-frequency design environment platform with its unique unified data model, Microwave Office software offers unparalleled intuitiveness, powerful and innovative technologies, and unprecedented openness and interoperability, enabling integration with best-in-class tools for each part of the design process.

Application

Microwave Office is being used for Power Amplifier design; in this particular case High Power Amplifier 20 – 520 MHz, 125W.

Key reasons for choosing

Its outstanding modelling capability enabled us to rapidly explore a huge range of parameters & designs before settling on the optimal layout. The accuracy of Microwave Office continued to minimise post design work during prototype build, which lead to significant time reduction and speeded up the product delivery.

Reliable and timely backup service offered by AWR added to the confidence we have in using the tool.

Challenge – BROADBAND, HIGH EFFICIENCY, HIGH POWER - Who says you can’t have it all?

Our latest product, the High Efficiency Amplifier, 20 – 520 MHz, 125W provided a challenge of improving the level of power and efficiency all in a smaller footprint.

Our goal was to create a product that would combine broadband with high efficiency and high power. The challenge took us on a journey of exploring and pushing the capabilities of GaN technology to achieve the minimum saturated output power of 125W in the defined frequency arrange. Integration of various software functions not only speeded up the design process, but also allowed first pass design success.

‘Over the past few years Amplifier Technology’s customers have continually pushed us to provide more demanding levels of performance from our Power Amplifiers giving shorter timescale. Microwave Office has helped us characterise appropriate parameters for each prototype design, evaluate possible variants and simulating the device performance straight from the design stage. In my experience Microwave Office is the best design package available on the market'- says Paul.

Go to AWR Microwave Office - RF Design Software website to find out more.