ADS v/s Ansoft v/s MWO

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Can anyone give me the point of differentiation between Advanced Design System(ADS), Microwave Office and Ansoft Designer?

Please put some light on the positive and negative part of each softwares.

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Hi,

I am currently use with ADS.
But I used to work with AWR also.
With Ansoft designer i never worked!

In my opinion both ADS and AWR have good accuracy, both of them have excellent EM simulation (in ADS - Momentum) and they.

I attaching paper that talk about different simulators.
please review!

David

advanced design system anosoft microwave office

I would say both ADS and MWO is pretty much similar, but they migrate from two different directions. MWO has been more towards chip design and ADS given its heritage from Touchstone, more towards circuit design. If I remember correctly Ansoft has it's roots in EM simulation.

So choosing between these, I would say, personal preferencies and cost if you look at ADS and MWO. I do not know Ansoft good enough to say how they would fare in a comparason between the other two.

You can request a free trial from both AWR/MWO and Agilent/ADS, and have a look. Hands-on is always great!

/WD

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Hi DDavid,

Thank you for providing such a good document which helped me in evaluating about different softwares used for planar antenna.

I also want to compare these softwares in terms of RF system design, RF PCB and board design , overall EM simulation and accuracy of the measurement. Please help me in evaluating this points too.

Added after 1 hours 19 minutes:

Hi All,

Please help me in comparing these softwares by sharing ur experience in using these tools.

Also highlight some positive and negative points of each tools.

I know that ADS is slightly expensive than MWO but what are the other considerations.

Thank you.

microwave office, ads, ansoft

im having same problem, as i am asked to start mmic designing while i have an opertunity to purchase tools for it, so which one should i go for?
we already hav MGC tools, and anasoft is compatible with that, is there any such relation of mentor with ADS or ..?

Gow with AWR.

By the way, they renamed it since a few years ago as "Design Environment", current is version dated June/July2010, 9.03 something.
DesignEnvironment includes all - Microwave & Analog Offices, VSS, etc, etc. (complete, unified package, better than separates).

Why?
Cheaper but as good or better than Agilent ADS, ADS has its strong points in some aspects, but specifically for chip design (which is thwat you need?) AWR is better & version dated by July2010 (9.03+) has newest Libraries, get a local library dlownload instead of Web based slow mode.. Filename should be like "VENDOR_LOCAL_90 or higher.

Here is my summary on the 3:

ADS: Most popular and oldest software. Powerful but cumbersome to use. Very good foundry support for MMIC foundries. Also can be quite expensive and requires training. Many features and many application notes and examples to use as guides.

AWR: Excellent tool for MMIC and PCB. Also very popular and growing customer base. Very accurate models and now even a great EM simulator in AXIEM. Good foundry support for MMIC. Easy to use. Not inexpensive, but a little less than ADS and much less than MGC or Cadence.

Ansoft: Really a very distant third in my opinion. It is useful for some PCB and signal integrity problems only. No support for MMIC libraries and poor layout capabilities. Price is often close to free though if you buy HFSS. You get what you pay for

I have used Ansoft Designer and AWR.

AWR: AWR is a good circuit simulator. It's very easy to design circuit schematics and easy to learn. But the layout in AWR is not that user friendly.
If you are a student,then you can get the free version of AWR. With the free version, you can design circuit schematics and even Layout.

Ansoft Designer: Ansoft Designer is costly. The circuit simulator is not that good. But the Layout is extremely good. And I had pretty good
success with the Ansoft Designer. The simulation results almost matched with experiment results. And there are pretty good
tutorials to get you started. Even if you are a student, you cannot get the software for free, they charge $2000 per year for a
university.

ADS : I never worked on that. But I heard that they give free licenses for universities.

CJ,

ADS Advantages are lots of examples and templates to get started, and disadvantage is difficulty of using the software. From a simulation perspective no real advantages as it is mature (i.e. old) technology.

AWR is more modern software and more intuitive and easy to use. Advantage is in the linear models (microstrip, stripline, CPW), but this is only apparent above 15 Ghz. AWR has both EM based models and closed for m like ADS.

For layout, ADS has old style back annotation engine with layout being a seperate program from schematic. Most people do not like ADS layout and use for simulation with Mentor (PCB) or Cadence (IC) as the real layout tool.

AWR has a unified database (UDB), which means the schematic and layout are always synchronized and work from very same database. If you change one the other view "mirrors" the change instantaneously. It is a different paradigm and it works well once you get used to it. This approach is best for mm-wave and MMIC, but can be cumbersome on huge circuits (i.e. more than 1000 densely packed models in RFIC or PCB).

Can you describe me about s-parameters,harmonic balance and envelope of ADS and characteristics of their respective simulation controller? and significant differences ?

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Thanks allot for the information

mmicman said:

CJ,

ADS Advantages are lots of examples and templates to get started, and disadvantage is difficulty of using the software. From a simulation perspective no real advantages as it is mature (i.e. old) technology.

AWR is more modern software and more intuitive and easy to use. Advantage is in the linear models (microstrip, stripline, CPW), but this is only apparent above 15 Ghz. AWR has both EM based models and closed for m like ADS.

For layout, ADS has old style back annotation engine with layout being a seperate program from schematic. Most people do not like ADS layout and use for simulation with Mentor (PCB) or Cadence (IC) as the real layout tool.

AWR has a unified database (UDB), which means the schematic and layout are always synchronized and work from very same database. If you change one the other view "mirrors" the change instantaneously. It is a different paradigm and it works well once you get used to it. This approach is best for mm-wave and MMIC, but can be cumbersome on huge circuits (i.e. more than 1000 densely packed models in RFIC or PCB).

Click to expand...

Hello All,

The Best & accurate report on AWR Microwave Office accuracy & ease of use practical examples validation available for US Navy....
Title : Verification and Validation Report: Microwave Office(Trademark) 2002 Modeling and Simulation for Electronic Systems this is one of THE BEST Report to show that even very old version (2002)of Microwave Office (MWO) is an accurate, better, & low cost environment

**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**

Also it is a very useful reference Guide for LNA, Filter, Amplifier Design from scratch to system level with measured data for comparison....

---manju---

Manjunatha_hv said:

Microwave Office (MWO) is an accurate, better, & low cost environment

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, in some section of the report, layout simulations are analyzed based on ideal elements. That is trivial and of course, no differences are expected unless there would be coding bug. The real point of interest would be the accuracy of physical transmission line models in MS/SL/SS.

I am using both ADS and AWR and like both. None of them is perfect.

CJ,

You have to be careful with these comparisons, but here is what i know.

Harmonic Balance: Agilent has 3 HB simulators: ADS, HARBEC (Eagleware), and GoldenGate from Xpedion. ADS and GG are generally quite good at small and large problems. Any convergence issues are usually associated with a problem in device model not a simulator issue. HARBEC is another story..... this is low-end rudimentary simulator for small circuits. I don't recommend EW for nonlinear. GG is more for RFIC (CMOS or SIGe).

AWR has 2 HB simulators as well, AWR original and APLAC from Finland. I think again both are quite good, with APLAC being better on large circuits like RFICs. Same story on models likely causing any convergence problems.... but the big difference is AWR can fix a model issues quickly, while it may take years for ADS to fix a problem unless you are a big customer. Model issues are rare in both these days.

Envelope is only available in ADS and GG and I think Cadence. AWR has some similar capabilities in system tool, VSS, but it is not the same exact approach. Envelope can be quite slow in all tools. Transient analysis or modulated steady state signals can address some problems as well. Depends on the problem.

S-parameters can be done in all tools. AWR is quite easy, but ADS is not too difficult these days, but it used to be much worse.