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Software will “cut RF PCB design time in half”

Pairs Mentor PCB and Agilent RF simulation tools

Mentor Graphics and Agilent have announced a coupling of technologies that they claim will significantly improve productivity for the design of RF circuits on PCBs; the two companies anticipate improved quality of mixed-technology designs, and reduction of PCB design cycle times by 50%. The joint offering is a close coupling of Mentor’s Expedition Enterprise* or Board Station XE flows, with Agilent’s Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA software for RF design and simulation. In system designs where digital, analog and RF on the same PCB for wireless, handheld and telecom products, designing mixed-technology systems requires tight integration of the physical layout environments and their respective simulation tools, Mentor says. Agilent adds that there can be a disconnect between RF design and simulation and PCB implementation, which this pairing addresses.