The Top 7 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing RF EDA Tools
By How-Siang Yap, Agilent Technologies

Electronic Design Automation (EDA) is a critical part of any engineer’s arsenal of design and test tools. It helps increase their productivity throughout the entire product life cycle, minimizes risk and oftentimes results in significant cost savings. More importantly, it ensures that the engineer has an efficient way to exploit the benefits of new and emerging technology. Despite these highly compelling benefits, all EDA tools—including those used for RF design—are not created equal. Selecting the right one can provide the engineer with a critical advantage in today’s highly competitive and dynamic marketplace, while selecting the wrong one increases the risk of missing a time-to-market window, going over budget and even of delivering a product lacking in quality or functionality.

Avoiding Critical Mistakes
To avoid making the wrong RF EDA tool selection, your decision must be approached carefully. Any tool, for example, should be fully evaluated prior to purchase. There are also seven critical mistakes that you should do your best to avoid. These mistakes include:

Mistake 1: Choosing a company without a proven track record
One of the biggest mistakes an engineer can make is being lured in by the EDA tool vendors’ slick sales pitch, big discounts and grand promises of tool functionality. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! Rather than focusing on style over substance, reduce your investment risk by choosing a vendor with a history of innovation and recognized industry leadership. Does the company have a proven history of successful product introductions, patents and awards? Is it an active member and participant in the standards bodies and industry organizations governing existing, as well as emerging, technologies? If the answer is yes, then it may be the vendor for you. Neverthe- less, before making any final purchasing decision, be sure to ask for and check out the vendor’s references.

Mistake 2: Buying for today, without anticipating future expansion
While your needs may be simple today, this may not always be the case. Designing for today and tomorrow requires a wide range of simulation technologies for system, circuit, and layout (electromagnetic) analysis. These simulators must work together for thorough verification of circuit performance, including the effects of everything from RF/baseband interactions to physical layout structures.

Make sure you won’t outgrow the capabilities provided by your RF EDA vendor. Assess overall technology breadth to determine the application range to which the simulator(s) can be applied. Before making any investment, be sure to ask about simulator convergence for a range of applications, look at simulation performance and ensure that the simulation technology addresses problems that might increase in size in the future.

Mistake 3. Overlooking the contribution of test and verification to design success
Driving a product to market to meet a specific deadline oftentimes forces the engineer to rush steps in the design cycle. For example, to get a product out the door, designers may cut short specific tests or minimize simulation time, but this can only lead to far greater problems if a bug inadvertently makes its way into the consumer’s hands. Unifying EDA software and the test environment provides one way of speeding development time without having to cut corners. It means that complex stimulus signals (e.g., for wireless applications like LTE and Mobile WiMAX) can be created in the simulation domain and then made available for use in the test domain and vice versa. Likewise, as various system component prototypes become available, measurement-based behavioral models of these components can be combined with simulation-based models of early component designs. By coupling verification and test of prototyped hardware with simulated parts, design verification can be pulled up in the development schedule, saving costly redesign and reducing design risk.

To ensure access to these capabilities, select a RF EDA tool that is not only unified with the test environment, but that also supports libraries of spectrally-correct test waveforms based on wireless industry standards. Such waveforms are critical for accurately testing and verifying RF functionality based on new and emerging wireless standards.

Mistake 4. Failing to understand the difference between low cost and cost-effective
Granted, everyone wants to purchase the best EDA tool available at the cheapest price possible, but is this really where you can get the “biggest bang for your buck?” In today’s tough economic climate the answer is no. Rather than looking at how many cool new features you can get for a certain price, try ensuring that you pay for only what you need. Ask yourself: Am I paying for the features and functionality that I really require today or for added features and functionality that I do not need today and may not even need tomorrow? To avoid this dilemma, purchase your RF EDA tools from a vendor that offers flexible pricing options and cost-effective bundled solutions. Also, ensure that the vendor’s solutions can be easily upgraded or expanded as your tool needs change.

Mistake 5. Choosing a non-integrated tool
While point tools are often highly optimized for a specific task, they can drive up internal CAD support costs when not fully integrated into industry-standard design flows and methodologies. In contrast, tools that are fully integrated into industry-standard design flows, and are supported through extensive third-party partnerships, often lower internal costs. Of course, the quality and long-term supportability of integration depends, in large part, on cooperation between the RF EDA tool vendor and industry-leading framework vendors. Therefore, before committing to any tool purchase, be sure to ask the RF EDA tool vendor about any partnerships it has established, as well as the integration of its tool into today’s standard design flows.

Mistake 6. Forgetting about the foundry and component vendors
The availability of high-quality process design kits (PDKs) that have been rigorously validated by your foundry are absolutely critical for successful high-frequency IC design. When designing RF and microwave boards with discreet components, access to a wide choice of design components (e.g., via component libraries) provides you with the freedom to trade off price versus performance in your design. Ask your foundry or component vendor which tools they support, to what level they support these tools and whether they’ve had a positive, long-term relationship with the vendor.

Mistake 7. Focusing on software and not on services and support
Before making your RF EDA tool purchase, you will want a strong assurance that your vendor is reliable. Will it be available once you have the tool in hand to answer any questions you have or help with your specific applications? It is also important to consider the quality and accessibility of the technical support you will receive. Ask about qualified, local application engineers that will assist you throughout your evaluation and after your purchase. Ask about local and/or web-based training. Assess the quality and quantity of technical information on the vendor’s web site. Additionally, confirm the availability of consulting services for any potential tool customization or specialized training you may want in the future.

Additional Points to Consider
While avoiding the seven mistakes cited above can significantly improve your chances of making a wise and trusted investment in RF EDA tools, they are not the only factors to consider. Some of the other important things to look for are tools that provide a strong data analysis capability and access to a substantial library of accurate, trusted models.

Today’s top designers require breakthrough insight into the large amount of data that’s produced during simulation. Access to a tool with strong data analysis and visualization (display) technology is crucial to realizing this goal. It not only dramatically improves the designer’s productivity, but also is the difference between just an adequate simulation tool and a powerful design environment.

When it comes to simulation accuracy, the availability of a wide range of accurate models for high-frequency passives, transistors and block-level behavioral components is critical. How well these models are implemented in the simulator also plays a key role in simulator robustness. Be sure, therefore, that the RF EDA tool vendor has established relationships with both model developers and standards committees. Also, verify that they offer model support for characterizing and modeling both linear and nonlinear component behavior.

The Bottom Line
Regardless of what RF EDA tool you choose to purchase and which vendor you choose to purchase it from, following the guidance offered in this article can be especially helpful in ensuring you make a wise decision. More critically, it can allow you to make a purchasing decision with full confidence that your selection will be worth the expense today as well as into future—offering you a significant competitive advantage for years to come.

About the Author
How-Siang Yap is the product manger for Agilent’s Genesys RF and Microwave Design Software. He holds a 1st class honors engineering degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia and a postgraduate management diploma from the Helsinki School of Business, Finland.

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