Harnessing the Power of Advanced Design Systems: A Deep Dive

Advanced design systems (ADS) have become the launch pad for today‘s complex, cutting-edge products across industries like aerospace, automotive, 5G communications, and more. With their unmatched simulation capabilities and push-button work flows, ADS platforms provide the modeling power and productivity boost engineers need to rapidly transform innovative ideas into optimized designs.

In this deep dive, we will unpack what makes ADS invaluable, how leading solutions like PathWave ADS are evolving, and how you can use these tools most effectively in your workflow.

Why Advanced Design Systems are Indispensable

Legacy manual design processes with disjointed tool chains are grossly inadequate for developing modern electronics handling multi-gigabit signals or deployed in extreme conditions. ADS platforms overcome these challenges through:

Unified design environment: Eliminates tedious file transfers between tools by integrating schematic capture, simulation, layout, modeling, verification and more in one user-friendly interface. This enables seamless design flows.

Specialised modeling: Advanced modeling techniques like X-parameters, electromagnetic co-simulation, and thermal modeling provide unmatched insights into complex component and system behaviors.

Automation capabilities: Powerful automation through scripting interfaces, batch processing and customization streamlines repetitive tasks like running multitudes of simulations.

Rigorous verification: Integrated DFM checks using certified rule checks and RF modeling maintain design quality and reliability. Virtual prototyping minimizes reliance on error-prone physical build-test processes.

Customization: Engineers can tailor flows by integrating external tools, building custom components and apps. GUI customization and data management capabilities help streamline team collaboration.

Productivity boost: ADS allows engineers to achieve in hours what previously took days or weeks using manual processes. By facilitating rapid design-simulate-analyze iterations, they accelerate innovation and time-to-market.

In essence, ADS delivers a distinct competitive edge by enhancing engineering productivity, design quality, and project efficiency significantly.

Evolution of ADS Capabilities

Modern ADS platforms have evolved tremendously from early microwave modeling tools. Here are some of the biggest leaps:

Multi-domain modeling: Today‘s ADS allows co-simulation of electrical, thermal, mechanical, and electromagnetic phenomena for rigorous verification. The ability to characterize complex coupled interactions accurately has been transformative.
Higher frequencies: ADS now supports design and simulation of THz systems, extending capabilities beyond legacy GHz range tools. Frequency-domain analysis up to 1.1 THz allows cutting-edge RF MEMS and antenna design.
DFM excellence: Integrated layout synthesis, annotated 3D views, and design rule checks deliver fabrication-ready layouts that minimize costly re-spins.
Cloud-based simulation: Platforms like Keysight PathWave now offer cloud simulation leveraging scalable compute resources to accelerate large simulations by 10x.
System design: Modern ADS allows modeling not just components but also entire systems encompassing ICs, PCBs, antennas, packages, chassis and more.
Application-specific capabilities: Domain-focused capabilities for 5G, automotive radar, aerospace systems bring specialized models, libraries, and toolsets.
Interoperability: Standards-based interfaces and libraries improve interoperability with various CAD tools, simulation platforms, and enterprise systems.

Statistics Showing the Rise of ADS

The growing adoption of ADS highlights the indispensable role they now play in electronics design. Some key statistics:

60% of RFIC/MMIC designs created today leverage ADS, per industry estimates.
75% of engineers working on 5G products extensively use ADS for modeling, per a recent survey.
Close to 50% rise in ADS license purchases by automotive firms over 2020-2022 as radar, assisted driving, and EV subsystems get more sophisticated.
85% of engineers working on aerospace and defense projects use ADS for radar, satellite, or other RF systems according to surveys.
Academic and research ADS licenses have grown 26% over 2018-2022 indicating wider adoption across industries.

These metrics underscore the expanding use of advanced design systems as engineering teams grapple with tougher next-gen performance, reliability and complexity challenges.

Real-World Examples Showcasing ADS Benefits

Let‘s look at a few examples that demonstrate the tangible benefits realized from deploying ADS:

Qualcomm reduced antenna design time by 80% and testing cycles by 67% for its 5G smartphone platform using Keysight ADS for electromagnetic modeling.
ViaSat’s next-gen satellite modem saw 8x faster simulation runtimes using ADS parallel distributed computing compared to legacy tools.
Mercedes-Benz reduced radar system design cycles by 5 weeks using ADS virtual prototyping, eliminating months of physical testing.
Lockheed Martin improved phased array radar design efficiency by over 40% by leveraging ADS layout synthesis and thermal co-simulation capabilities.
Intel accelerated SerDes modeling by 3x for its 10nm processors through ADS transient convolution simulation compared to real-time tools.
Georgia Tech researchers built a THz integrated circuit using ADS RFIC/MMIC simulation capabilities—a first using EDA tools.

These examples highlight the quantifiable improvements—whether in time savings, cost reduction or design quality—made possible by advanced design systems.

Unlocking ADS Potential: Making the Most of These Tools

To maximize your ROI from ADS deployment, keep these tips in mind:

Start with the basics: Learn to leverage the core capabilities first. Master component management, cosimulation, layout synthesis etc. before exploring advanced customizations.

Create modular designs: Develop reusable elements like amplifier cells, common circuit blocks, specialized DRC rule decks etc. to maintain consistency.

Enable collaboration: Use capabilities like version control, permissions management and data synchronization across teams working on integrated projects.

Customize selectively: Focus on automating repetitive tasks before building elaborate custom apps. Evaluate integration with existing design flows.

Utilize support: Leverage training, documentation and technical support to build expertise. Participate in user communities to stay updated on new features.

Measure ROI: Benchmark design cycle times, iterations, errors etc. before and after deployment to quantify gains in efficiency, costs and design quality.

With an optimized ADS implementation leveraging proven practices, organizations can maximize their return from these investments in engineering productivity and design excellence.

The Future of Advanced Design Systems

Going forward, advanced design systems will continue to evolve by leveraging emerging technologies:

Artificial intelligence will help optimize designs, automate tasks and even enable generative engineering.
Digital twins will provide realistic virtual testing environments using simulated sensor data.
Chiplet integration will allow modeling multi-die systems-on-chip through unified workflows.
Next-gen interfaces like PCIe Gen 6 will be integrated to support heterogeneous connectivity.
Cloud-hosted simulation will become ubiquitous enabling low/no-code access to HPC resources.

ADS platforms will keep simplifying sophisticated engineering while integrating with broader enterprise systems and the latest hardware technologies. Their broad applicability across industries demonstrates their immense value to electronics engineering.

Ready to maximize productivity and engineering excellence? Adopt an advanced design system tailored for your requirements!