High-frequency EDA software provider Applied Wave Research Inc. has integrated Analog Devices' analog-to-digital converter (ADC) models (ADIsimADC^™ with its Visual System Simulator^™ 2004 (VSS) design system. With this unique combination of capabilities, radio frequency (RF) and baseband design, engineers who use VSS software to develop wireless communications systems, can now quickly and easily model the actual performance of Analog Devices' ADCs in a system block diagram.

“The combination of VSS software and ADIsimADC models is a giant step forward in being able to accurately predict and analyze the performance characteristics of a specific ADC converter part number over various input and operating conditions,” said Brad Brannon, staff applications engineer in the high-speed converter group at Analog Devices.

“Every converter genre exhibits unique real world behavior patterns, and this tool helps minimize the design surprises that tend to result from basing performance assumptions strictly on data sheet specs.”

This new capability provides engineers with the ability to make design tradeoffs at the system level, ensuring that design specifications are met early in the development process, thus reducing development cycles and time-to-market, noted George Chrisikos, director of engineering for systems development at AWR.

The ADIsimADC software design tool is based on proprietary behavioral modeling technology used in Analog Devices' state-of-the-art design labs. By using such advanced models in VSS software, designers can reduce the risk during the system design phase by running simulations across various system parameters while using real world device models. This eliminates the need to transcribe parameters obtained from an ADC product specification sheet into a generic ADC model where, more often than not, such a model does not have either one-for-one correspondence with the specification sheet or a complete selection of essential parameters. Furthermore, this model may not have direct correlation to the physical device's performance.

Likewise, the VSS is a comprehensive software suite for the design of complete, end-to-end communications systems. Its technology uses a complex envelope simulation engine that enables systems and circuit designers to work together within a common simulation framework to perform interactive, top-down analysis of analog and digital communications systems and RF subsystems. VSS software, with its core algorithmic advantages, provides an extremely fast simulation engine that reduces overhead and eliminates simulation bottlenecks, speeding designs to implementation, according to AWR.

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