Computer-aided design (CAD)

Updated July 5, 2009

In all types of electrical engineering, the term "CAD" is rapidly being replaced with "EDA", which stands for "electronic design automation". We're going to stick with "CAD" since it's faster to say, and everyone knows what it means, including the politically incorrect double-entendre in the Rhett Butler sense (which is no-doubt why the feminized software industry has switched to "EDA"!) But let's stop digressing... again...

Update July 2009: we've changed the rules on this page and many others. In the interests of providing information to our readers, we will continue to list software suppliers, but we will no longer maintain links to their web sites for free. Instead, you will be linked to this page, which will soon be one of our most popular in terms of page views. If you are a supplier, we'll rent you a link on this page or any other page, but it won't be for free. Contact us!

Being primarily hardware guys (by "guys" we mean all possible sexes) at Microwaves101, we try not to refer to software as tools. Software is software, you use it while sitting your increasingly soft butt in a chair. Tools are those things that real men (and men-like women) use in the garage or around the house, while skinning knuckles and getting grease, paint and dirt on their pants. Hey, that was a seriously incorrect statement, oops, there goes another potential sponsor...

A clickable index to the slowly growing Microwaves101 CAD web resource:

History of microwave software

Linear analysis software

Synthesis, analysis and optimization

Optimization

Netlist versus schematic capture interface

Physical versus ideal elements

Linear versus nonlinear analysis

Time domain versus frequency domain

Electromagnetic analysis software

Computational electromagnetics

EM analysis using Sonnet (separate page sponsored by Sonnet)

Layout software

Laying out thin-film networks

Laying out printed wiring boards

Free printed circuit board software!

Laying out MMICs

CAD computer files: common file extensions

Software for coplanar-waveguide designs

Filter design software

Large-signal analysis software

Spice analysis

Links to microwave software suppliers

Here's a list of software suppliers. Guess how many of the links are "live?" One of these days we'll sort this list into a table that shows linear, EM, layout, transient, etc. capabilities. Maybe someone else would like to take a crack at this for a free gift?

Advanced Design System (ADS)

Ansoft

Ansys

Applied Wave Research

Bay Technology

Computer Simulation Technology

EM Photonics

Field Precision

Integrated Engineering Software

Lumerical

Remcom

Sonnet software

Vector Fields

Software for coplanar-waveguide designs

Many companies out there offer specialized software that works in conjunction with linear optimizers. There is at least one company that specializes in a simulation tool for CPW, called Coplan.

Filter design software

There are a large number of vendors selling filter design software these days, check the ads in any microwave trade journal. You can download a fair amount of filter design software on the web for free, nerds have been writing their own filter code for as long as there have been computers. Heck, even Microwaves101 offers a free download for lumped filter design!

Large-signal analysis software

Coming soon! Or not!