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Updated May 13, 2008 This page contains the best microwave tools you can find on the Internet that you can download for free! Does the IEEE provide such a page? Do microwave trade journals? Don't bet on it! If you have something we can add to this area, we'll trade you a free gift, or if your work is really outstanding, we'll pay you for it (but not much!) Our download area is divided into three categories:
Spreadsheet and text downloadsThe spreadsheets below supplement our calculator page, and in general offer data-crunching that is too complicated to put onto an HTML page for you. A lot of people ask us "why
do you create spreadsheets for calculating stuff like group delay,
when all these calculations and more are built into Agilent's ADS
software?" There are two reasons, Silly Rabbit: first, not
everyone has spent $50K on software, but everyone has Excel. And
second, you have a lot more options for presenting data using Excel.
How many times have you sat through a design review where all of
the plots were cut and pasted from ADS (or worse, Eagleware Genesys)
outputs, and you can't identify what you're looking at or what any
of the values are? New for May 2008! Here's a spreadsheet from Chip that simulates the Klopfenstein taper. We're working on an explanation on this page. Also new for May 2008! Here's our version of a poor man's CAD tool for doing layouts (like Visio, or a really cheap version of AutoCAD). It's explained on this page. We're still working on this, come back in a week or so... New for April 2008! This
Excel spreadsheet calculates free space loss and and Fresnel zone
radii. Inputs are frequency in GHz, transmitter TPO, antenna gain,
transmission line loss, path distance, RX threshold, and obstruction
distance for the Fresnel radius. Outputs
are freespace loss in dBm, RX signal in dBm, RX fade margin, 1st,
2nd, 3rd and 4th Fresnel zone radii at the obstruction (calc) point. Contributed by Tim! New for March 2008! We've finally got around to dressing up our VSWR spreadsheet into something we're proud of! We fixed the math, and added a slider bar so you can animate the waveforms. Note: you have to enable macros in order to get this spreadsheet to work! This spreadsheet has its own page of instructions located here. New for February 2008! Here's a spreadsheet that shows you how to do linear interpolation in Excel, a valuable skill in any engineering field. We're working on a page that describes this calculation. Added March 2008. Here's a spreadsheet contributed by Harald that shows you how to access the polynomial curve fitting capabilities of Excel! Here's Harald's description of its capabilities:
Also new for February 2008! Here's an RF unit converter from Frank. Thanks! It's an executable file that converts watts to dB-stuff and voltages, and more. Below is a screen capture that illustrates the capabilities:
And also new for February 2008! We have a new page that offers some free downloads courtesy of the U.S. Navy! The Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series (NEETS) was written as part of the non-resident training course series and released to the public in 1998. We've only posted the topics that have to do with microwaves, radar and radio, but if there's enough interest we might upload the entire set. You can find these training manuals on many other web sites, but few have the bandwidth that we have for rapid downloads. Some lesser web sites even try to sell them! Thanks to Steve for suggesting this idea! New for January 2008! We've created a bare-bones Smith Chart using equations for circles inside an Excel file. Then we stripped away the equations and left just the data. You can use this file any way you like, to plot data on the Smith Chart inside Excel. We'll be using it on some future spreadsheets, you betcha. New for December 2007! Here's Kire's level diagram spreadsheet. Kire is one of our best "answerers" on the Microwaves101 message board, he's a prime example of what makes this a great web site. New for December 2007! Phil sent us a microstrip miter spreadsheet, thank you sir! In his own words...
New for October 2007! Here's a spreadsheet that analyzes coupled-line couplers. You can vary the coupling factor, then see what an ideal coupler does over frequency. Be sure to turn on Excel's Analysis Toolpak! New for September 2007: Here's a spreadsheet that will help you floorplan a power amplifier! It is described on this page. New for August 2007: here's a spreadsheet that calculates resistor values for minimum loss L-pads which are described here: New for May 2007: here's the start of a spreadsheet that looks at the array factor for phased array antenna calculations. Well, OK, it only looks at a single line of antennas (from 1 to 101), it would be too big to download if it simulated an entire array in two dimensions. It is far from finished, but maybe some smart person out there can take over for us and put some more effort into it. It is useful for looking at the various tradeoffs of gain versus number of elements, grating lobes as a function of element spacing, number of phase shifter bits, type of phase shifter, and a few other things. Feedback is appreciated! New for December 2007: we combined the waveguide table contributed by Alan from NZ with our waveguide loss spreadsheet, and we added the capability to model dielectrically-loaded waveguides (which coincidentally has a new page here at Microwaves101!) There's a mess of improvements, including a pull-down table for selecting different conductors, and some new graphs. New for December 2006: here's a rectangular waveguide table that is more complete than the one we have on this page. It was contributed by Alan D. from NZ. It has the three primary official designations along with some commercial designations, and interior dimensions are given in millimeters and inches. Here's the start of an optimum miter calculator... Updated December 2007: there is perhaps no more easily analyzed transmission line than coax. Previously we created a spreadsheet that performs the exact calculation of metal losses of coax with frequency, it also computes dielectric losses due to loss tangent and dielectric conductivity and a ton of other parameters like characteristic impedance, capacitance and inductance per unit length, cutoff frequency, etc. We've recently made a few minor corrections to the spreadsheet, and added the offset coax calculation. Please discard any previous version you've saved. See why our spreadsheet is a ton more useful than Agilent's ADS for analyzing coax! Updated August 2007! Here's a multidielectric coax calculator, contributed by Alex R. The update fixes some small errors, and adds a table of dielectric properties to each page. It will calculate characteristic impedance of coax that contains up to five concentric dielectrics! Be sure to check out our page that explains the math. Updated for September 2007: here's a filter calculator from Vlad, which does lumped element calculations (Chebyshev and Butterworth) and is very cool and admittedly better than the Excel calculator that we offer farther down the page. We now have a page that describes how to operate Vlad's calculator (but it's so simple you could figure most of it out yourself). We've had a lot of positive feedback about this calculator. The latest version offers the uses control over the plot axes. Please send us your comments on this calculator, Vlad volunteers to fix any problems you have! New for July 2006: here's a MATLAB (c) tool for cylindrical resonant cavities. Contributed by Itzik! Revised February 3, 2008: the ultimate tool for manipulating S-parameters into all manner of plots, including group delay, K-factor, maximum available gain, VSWR, mismatch loss, loss factor, and input and output impedance plots (learn more about it here). You can now quickly plot all of these parameters, from any manufacturers' S-parameters that you can download! We've just added the ability to import data in real/imaginary format (in addition to magnitude or dB). It provides reference plane extension capability, and averaging to the group delay calculation, and even does Smith chart plots! We recently fixed a bug in the GMAX calculation which fixes a problem where the 15 digits of precision within Excel sometimes aren't enough! (Explanation of this statement can be found here.) New for August 2007! The above spreadsheet is good for 500 lines of data. At the request of John C., we created a modified version of the utilities spreadsheet that has 2000 lines of data. Use this file only if you need it, it's over 7 MB!
For February 14, 2006! Here's S-parameter data (in S2P "magnitude" format) that, when S11 and S22 are plotted on a Smith chart, looks like a heart! Send it to your Honey, and ask him/her to plot it for you! If you prefer, here's our S-parameter utility spreadsheet with the "heart curve" built in so you don't have to load the S-parameters into Excel. If you're lazy, just grab the graphic below and toss it into a steamy email! Here are the equations that we used to generate this graphic, we adapted them from something we found on the worldwide web. Here's a download for looking at mixer waveforms. We have a new mixer waveform page that will show you how to use this to understand how a mixer works, in the time domain. Originally Chris and Graham from across the pond have sent us a cool spreadsheet for calculating mixer spurious products! It's as good as the one at Hittite.com, but because you download it before you use it, no one will ever know your secret frequencies! The Microwaves101 Professor has outdone them with an expanded mixer spur calculator which you can now download. We have also put up a page on the instructions for using the revised calculator, check it out! Here's one engineer's collection of aerospace slang, it's from Carl F. Gauze who works at Anonymous Aerospace. (Danger Will Robinson, this document contains the F-word, so don't download it if you have a problem with that!) Click here to go to the Microwaves101 slang dictionary. Much improved for February 2005: here is our lumped-element Chebyshev filter calculator! It now includes plotting capability, so you can synthesize filters and play with them in real time! (We are still working some bugs, be sure to look over the "readme" page.) Using this Excel spreadsheet you can calculate ideal elements for N=3, N=4 and N=5 order low-pass, high-pass, and band-pass filters, and you get to specify the passband and the ripple. A full description is given on our section on lumped-element filters. New for January 2005: this SPICE skin effect cable attenuation model was contributed by Mike Leung of Northrop Grumman Space Technologies (formally TRW). This is for engineers who model circuits using SPICE, which unfortunately excludes everybody at Microwaves101! But it looks cool so we will pass it along!
Here's a spreadsheet for calculating N-section impedance transformers, to match two real impedances that you specify! Improved for November 2005! The "bug" is fixed, you can now transform in both directions (Z1<Z2, Z1>Z2). In July, the Professor redid the calculator (again!), it now calculates equal-ripple, maximally flat and exponential transformers (up to eight sections). It even displays the frequency response, you don't need ADS or Eagleware or other expensive software! Note: If your Excel software doesn't have the "Analysis ToolPak" installed , you might not be able to view the graphs properly. Go to "tools", then "Add-Ins", then check the box for "analysis ToolPak". Check out our page on quarterwave tricks for more information on transformers.
Revised for June 2007: our RF sheet resistance spreadsheet now has a single-metalization option that plots resistivity and conductivity for a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 skin depths (per request of Chris G.) And now the spreadsheet is totally unlocked! We previously added a pull-down menu of metal parameters for your convenience, and some other cool features! Our RF sheet resistance spreadsheet calculates the equivalent ohms per square versus frequency of three layers of different metals, using the skin depth equation. This is a feature you won't find on Agilent's ADS software, and if you did it would have more bugs than Mount Katahdin! Check out our web pages devoted to the subject of skin depth. Fixed bug in pull-down table November 28, 2006. The materials in the table have to remain in alphabetic order or Microsoft Excel can choke! Cascade101.xls - the best cascade analysis spreadsheet you'll ever get for free. For more information about this and other cascade analysis tools, check out our Cascade Analysis page. Send us an email if you want a cascade tool with more capability! Graphics downloadsNew for October 2006: here's a couple of Visio files that contain graphics for coax and waveguide schematics of block diagrams. These were supplied by Ted! Thanks! What would a microwave web site be without some handy Smith chart downloads? Here are some great Smith charts that are low in megabytes but high in resolution, perfect for documents! Here's a black and white Smith Chart in Adobe Acrobat pdf. Here's a color Smith Chart. (Need the Acrobat reader? Click here!) Here's is a Microsoft Word document that contains schematic symbols such as resistors, capacitors, circulators, attenuators and switches, power dividers, bias tees, DC blocks and assorted other microwave components. In the latest edition (August 2007), we've added the Owen resistive splitter, some colorful Lange couplers, and an AC voltage source (the latter thanks to Nathan!) You can use this file to create your own schematics for documents and presentations. We update it periodically, the latest version is called Electronic Symbols 13.doc. Please send your feedback on this work-in-progress to techwriter@microwaves101.com. Cool Microwaves101 posters!New for August 2005: check out Varian's "History of Radar" ads, those cats were real gone! Here's a poster for your lab in PDF format. Print it and post it and help us Fite Microwave Stupidity! Are you sick and tired of picking up a connector out in your lab and finding that some one else wrecked it? The Unknown Editor has a solution for you. Post this handy guide to Connector Care in your lab! It's updated for 2007, thanks to Vinny who caught a mistake on the torque spec (inch ounces should have read inch pounds!) Information downloadsAt Microwaves101 we pride ourselves on building microwave information into our encyclopedia, so it is indexed, cross-linked, and totally convenient. Not like some crummy pdf data sheets and app notes that suppliers put up for you to go crazy waiting two minutes to download so you can spend ten minutes looking for and probably not finding the info you need. We also make it a point not to steal stuff from other web sites and offer it as our own. But in some cases, we realize there are documents out in the public domain that we can collect and offer in one convenient place. Here's two examples. The Quadrennial Defense Report is put together every four years by the Department of Defense, the last was issued was February 2006. This report defines where we are on the war on terror, as well as the to-be state. If you want to win a government defense contract you should read this and reference it in your proposal. DARPA has a strategic plan, you should read it! The Navy's Office of Naval Research has a plan for science and technology, some of which is gonna involve some very high power microwaves... The Navy released some great tutorial documents in 1998, including an entire series on electronics. We've posted the NEETS documents on a separate page. |
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