Agilent Technologies Inc. has added wireless test benches, sources and measurement capabilities to its Advanced Design System (ADS) 2004A EDA software to enable fast and accurate simulation of wireless designs to WLAN, 3GPP and TD-SCDMA standards. The new capabilities allow RF circuit designers to quickly and accurately verify subsystem performance in wireless communications products, said the developer.

“Agilent's verification capabilities fill the tremendous needs of our RF customers who are designing to the latest communication standards and increasingly integrating their designs with complex subsystems,” said Joe Civello, product marketing manager of Agilent's EEsof EDA Division. “The new sources, measurements and test benches in ADS are the result of our ongoing commitment to providing best-in-class circuit design and simulation tools to the wireless communications development community.”

Traditionally, nonlinear and distortion analysis and measurements rely only on discrete-tone figures of merit. Discrete-tone stimuli and measurements may prove inadequate since real-world sources have different signal characteristics such as power statistics. For accurate verification, designers must validate the performance of their circuit under real-world stimuli and with the system measurements that current standards require.

The new ADS 2004A capabilities include configurable DSP-based modulated sources with RF and baseband outputs, a set of measurement expressions and a range of wireless test benches for 3GPP, WLAN and TD-SCDMA technologies. Measurements such as error vector magnitude and bit-error rate can be performed directly on the circuit schematic, providing more accuracy, efficiency and ease-of-use for analysis and design of highly integrated circuits. The new sources and measurements use, when appropriate, the same algorithms used in Agilent instruments to allow consistent verification from design to test.

Agilent ADS offers a complete set of system and circuit simulation technology and instrument links for RF and microwave design in a single, integrated design flow.

For more information, visit www.agilent.com.