Links

A BIG LIST

[block]0[/block]Active-HDL: 800-487-8743, Aldec | VHDL design
[block]1[/block]Antenna System Planner: 708-349-3300, Andrew Corp. / Orland Park, IL | Antenna System Design

• Ansoft Corp.: 412-261-3200, Ansoft / Pittsburgh, PA | Electromagnetic
• AppCAD: Hewlett Packard | General design tools
• ASM 500: 408-426-6163 | Artwork, Conversion, DFX, Gerber
• ATC Quick-Calc: 516-547-5700, ATC / Huntington Station, NY | Capacitor Calculation
• AutoCAD: 408-517-1700, AutoDesk, Inc. / Cupertino, CA | Mechanical, Drafting
• Avista Design Systems: 800-985-6080, ADS / Folsom, CA | RF, Microwave
• AVX SPIMIC: 800-946-0414, AVX / Myrtle Beach, SC | Capacitor Calculation
• Calculators: Hundreds of calculators
• CapCAD: 315-655-8710, Dielectric Laboratories / Cazenovia, NY | Capacitor Calculation
• Cascade Calculator: 770-945-1115, Anadigics / Suwanee, GA | Receiver Cascade Analysis
• Control System Professional: 888-899-3407, Wolfram Research | System Analysis
• Eagle: 800-858-8355, CadSoft Computer, Inc. /   Delray Beach, FL | Layout
• Eclipse 4.0: 804-525-6837, Arden Technologies/ Forest, VA | RF Microwave Linear
• Electronics Workbench: 800-263-5552, Interactive Image Technologies / North Tonawanda, NY | Analog, Digital, Mixed Mode
• ezGuide: 708-349-3300, Andrew Corp. / Orland Park, IL | Microwave Transmission Line Ordering Guide
• Ensemble: 303-541-9525, Boulder Microwave Technologies / Boulder, CO | Antenna Design
• Fidelity: 510-797-8109, Zeland Software / Fremont, CA | Time-Domain 3D EM Simulation
• FilterCAD: 408-432-1900, Linear Technologies / Milpitas, CA | Active filter designer
• Full Wave: 514-849-8752, Infolytica |Electromagnetic
• Genesys: 770-939-0156, Eagleware Corp. / Stone Mountain, GA | Electromagnetic, Schematic, Layout
• HFSS: 412-261-3200, Pittsburgh, PA | Electromagnetic Field Simulation
• Hyperlynx: 425-869-2320 | PCB layout signal analyzer
• ICAP/4: 800-357-1636 | Circuit simulation
• IE3D: 510-797-8109, Fremont, CA |Planar & 3D EM Simulation
• IsSpice4: 310-833-0710, Intusoft, San Pedro, CA | Schematic, Circuit Simulation
• Macsyma: 800-622-7962, Macsyma, Arlington, MA | Math
• Maple: 800-267-6583, Waterloo Maple / Ontario, Canada |Mathematics
• MathCad: 617-577-1017, MathSoft / Cambridge, MA | Mathematics
• Mathematica: 800-943-9614, Wolfram Research / Champaign, IL | Mathematics
• MatLab: 508-647-7000, The Math Works /  MA | Mathematics
• Maxwell Strata: 412-261-3200, Ansoft Corp. / Pittsburgh, PA | Electromagnetic
• Mentor Graphics: 800-547-3000, Wilsonville, OR | Analog, Digital, Mixed Signal
• Microstrip Calculator: Max Froding | Microstrip line calculator
• Microwave Explorer: 201-881-1200, Compact Software / Paterson, NJ | Electromagnetic, RF, Microwave
• Microwave Office: 310-726-3000, El Segundo, CA | Electromagnetic, RF, Microwave
• Microwave System Planner: 708-349-3300, Andrew Corp. / Orland Park, IL | Microwave System Planning
• MxrSpur: 408-445-2902, The Engineers Club | graphical mixer spurious analysis
• MMICAD: 800-671-9505, OR | Electromagnetic, RF, Microwave
• PADS-Power Suite: 800-554-7253 | Schematic Capture, Layout, Routing
• p-cad 2000: 800-488-0680, San Diego, CA | PCB layout
• Parts&Vendors: 800-280-5176, Grass Valley, CA | Parts Lists
• Protel : 800-544-4186, Provo, UT | Schematic Capture, Simulation, Layout
• PSI Select: 708-349-3300, Andrew Corp. / Orland Park, IL | Pressurization Guide
• Radio Designer: 860-594-0200, ARRL/Newington, CT | RF CAD
• Serenade 8.5 PC for Windows NT: 412-261-3200, Ansoft / Paterson, NJ | Schematic Capture, Simulation, Layout
• SpectreRF: 800-746-6223, San Jose, CA | RF Integrated Circuit
• SISP: +30-1-772 1482, MCDG / Athens, Greece |Spiral Inductor Simulation
• Sonnet Level 1: 315-453-3096, Sonnet Software / Liverpool, NY | Electromagnetic
• SysCad: 414-367-6825, Brookfield, WI | System, Filter
• SysCalc: 804-525-6837, Arden Technologies / VA | RF, System Simulator
• System View: 818-597-1414, Elanix / Westlake, Village, CA | DSP, Communication, Signal Processing, Control
• TESLA: 800-631-1113, Tesoft, Inc. / Roswell, GA | System Simulator
• VIEWLogic: 800-873-8439, ViewLogic / Marlborough, MA | ASIC, FPGA, PCB Layout
• VSWR Calculator: 707 538-5825, VNA Help, Santa Rosa, CA | VSWR conversion calculator

Filter Design

S/FilSyn (PCFilt) from ALK Engineering: This PC demo version only works at one frequency, 833MHz (frequency translation is easy to do by hand, so the demo can easily be used for any design with a little thought!). The demo is pretty good. The interface is good, but not as good as MicroSim’s software. They will give you a full version for 30 days. They claim it’s the best filter software around.

• Filtroid from GigaSim: $995, The demo is pretty bad, but it’s still worth a try.
• MicroSim Filter Designer Software: This PC demo version only allows upto third order filters to be designed. It has a great user interface. The full version is $750.  Microsim was bought by OrCAD.
• Burr_Brown Filter Designer Software: A good simple filter designer for any order filter…and it’s FREE!
• Interactive Filter Design Software: CGI script that finds filter poles and zeros and transfer function. Very similar to MATLAB’s filter design routines (more analysis than synthesis).
• filtorX: A simple filter design tool. I see no advantage over MATLAB. You also have to mail in an agreement to use it (too much work).
• FilterMaster: A full working demo of Intusoft’s filter design software. This isn’t the real program, but a great demo:$2225, $335/year maintenance, $1195/per person for 2 day training.
• Xfilt:  An Academic Filter Design Tool.  You have to contact the school to get a copy.  I’m not sure of the quality, but it has good variety of analog filter synthesis options.
• Cadence’s Filter Design System. This is a digital filter synthesis tool.  No analog…booo!, but it’s from Cadence, so I assume it’s of good quality, and has some finite coefficient length tools.
• University of Illinois Filter Synthesis Class.  Some MATLAB routines for filter synthesis.
• Max Froding’s Butterworth Filter Synthesizer.  Design 2 to 25 element Butterworth lowpass and highpass filters from your internet browser.
• MIMICAD Filter Synthesis.  A Commercial Filter Synthesis Tool.  This webpage isn’t very good.
• Electronic Filter Synthesis and Analysis.  A book on filter synthesis.
• LADDER, A University of Wyoming Filter Synthesis Tool.  I think it is free.
• Serenade, Ansoft’s Filter Synthesis Routine.  I think it’s cheap for universities.
• superFILTER, Tatum Lab’s Filter Design Software.  Both digital and analog. Standard is $795 and Pro is $1995.  It has a good simple demo.  It’s good, but it looks like it’s topologies are limited.
• Filter Wiz, Standard is $89 (students-$38), Pro is $199(students-$84),  A good cheap program with a good interface, but it’s topologies are limited to biquads, which are more sensitive to process variations.
• FaiSyn, A simple very-inexpensive filter design tool.  It has limited capabilities, but it does the job for the right price:  Corportate is $89, single-user $35.
• Adore, A module(op-amps, switches, capacitors) generator for switched capacitor filters from Berkeley.Adore. $150 for distribution costs.
• Eagleware’s FILTER.  $699 Eagleware has a complete suite of filter design tools including active and transmission line based tools, but charges another $699-$999 for each product.

RF Design Tools

Spur Chart Calculator: Useful for defining the specifications of RF filters.

• Cascaded Block Analysis: A tool for analyzing a cascade of nonlinear noisy blocks.
• ANADIGICS Receiver Model Tool: A decent web based tool for receiver block analysis.
• PUFF: CAD for Microwave Circuits: You have to pay for it, so I have no idea how well it works. There are no examples on the webpage.

Impedance Matching Network Design

MATCHER, An Impedance Matching Network Design Webpage(now with 16 networks!), written in JavaScript/HTML.

• High Q and Broadband Matching Program, software developed by a ham radio operator.
• Impedance Matching Networks: Describes why’s and how’s of impedance matching. The author claims to have a C program (looks like Mathcad from the pictures), but it’s not available from his homepage. You can send him an email, I suppose.
• MIMP:  Motorola’s Impedance Matching Software.
• 2-Element Matching, a two-element matching program by Xuesong Jiang.

Phase Locked Loop Design

3rd Order PLL Design Software: A useful DOS program for designing a 3rd order PLL loop filters.

• 2nd Order PLL Design Software: A useful DOS program for designing a 2nd order PLL loop filters.
• 3rd Order PLL Loop Filter Designer: A fast simple Java routine for designing 3rd order PLL loop filters
• Phase Locked Loop Design and Analysis, Fall 1997 NTU Seminar, Postscript File

Eagleware PLL Design: PLL synthesis software. I’m sure it’s expensive.

• National’s PLL Design Software: Oh Boy! This is some good stuff.

Passive Element Design (Inductors, Substrate Isolation, etc.)

ASITIC: Analysis and Simulation of Spiral Inductors and Transformers for ICs. A very good passive component design and analysis program. Useful for analysis of any multilayer planar structure (inductors, capacitors, substrate isolation, etc.) Ali’s Homage has more information on ASITIC

• Magnetics Designer: A full featured transformer and inductor design software from Intusoft. This isn’t the real program, but it is a great demo.
• MID: Magnetic Inductor Designer
• Stanford Spiral Research
• SISP – SPiral Inductor SImulation Program

Operational Amplifier Design

Automated Switched Capacitor Integrator Designer: This is preliminary synthesis program I designed. Pole-zero cancellation doesn’t work ideally, because of process variations, so I’m modifying the program for a better architecture. In any case I hope you find it helpful. I also have a Mathcad version of the routine.

• Basic Op-Amp Transfer Functions: A simple discussion of operational amplifier transfer functions.
• Operational Amplifier Projects:
  • John Wetherell’s 240 Project
  • Kelvin Koo’s 240 Project
  • Xuesong Jiang’s 240 Project
  • David Sobels’s 240 Project
  • Ning Zhang’s 240 Project
  • Roy Sutton’s 240 Project
• Low Voltage Operational Amplifier Design: Andy Abo’s qualifying exam includes low voltage operational amplifier design techniques. Check out his homepage too!
• Power Design: An automated operational amplifier design tool.

Analog-Digital and Digital-Analog Converter Design

MIDAS: Mixed Digital/Analog Sampled-Data Simulator. Good for sigma delta modulator design.

• Richard Schreier’s Delta Sigma Toolbox, A great collection of design tools for sigma delta modulators, I find the coefficient sizing works great except for cascade and multibit modulators.
• Arnold Feldman’s Ph.D. Thesis: includes a good comparison of different operational amplifier architectures. It has a thorough analysis of integrated operational amplifier noise. Check out his homepage too!
• A 10.6mW 1MHz Fifth-Order Multiple-Bit Sigma-Delta Modulator, class project, EE247, SP96
• A Compact Low Power Decimation Filter for Sigma Delta Modulators , class project, EE241, SP97
• Low-Power Decimation Filter Design for Multi-Standard Transceiver Applications: A good thesis on decimation filter design.
• Decimation Filter Publications: A good discussion of decimation filter design with binary constrained coefficients.
• Automated DAC design: Robert Neff did his thesis on the automated design of current source DACs.
• Ecstasy: An automated analog IC design routine.
• SCADS: Automated Fitler and Pipelined A/D Converter Design.  I don’t think the pipelined A/D converter is available yet.  The filter design tool is integrated into Cadence and seems very powerful (i.e. transistor sizing), but I haven’t tried it.  I’ve found most of these tools to be very heavily analysis based with little synthesis capabilities.

Logic

Olympus Digital Design Software from Stanfurd (May I ment Stanford)

Radio Frequency and IC Design

Analog Integrated Circuits at Berkeley: This is the homepage for analog integrated circuit design at Berkeley.

• Aalborg University, DK: Has some interesting research and nonlinear noise software.
• Integrated Circuits at UCLA: Also interesting work on CMOS receivers.
• Issues in RF IC Design: A short course on RF IC design.
• Stanfurd’s Integrated System’s Lab: Work on a variety of integrated circuits, including CMOS RF.
• CDADIC: Center for design of analog-digital integrated circuits. Limited to only a few local universities, but the name implies a larger scale.
• Microsystems Technology Laboratories: A variety of good research at MIT.

Free Electrical Engineering Software Pages

• Electric, A FREE Schematic Entry Tool and much more !
• Electronic Engineering Technology Software Site: This has small but good selection of software tools for radio frequency design.
• The Free SPICE Index: An extensive list of free SPICE programs.
• Tony Fishers Circuit Simulator: An interesting online circuit design software. I prefer Microsim or Cadence like schematic entry.
• Electrical Engineering Circuits Archive: A collection of simple circuits and software.
• RF Globalnet: A great collection of RF magazine articles and software. Membership is free and worth filling out the forms. Software: Tons of good software on RFglobalnet.
• Ballistic: An analog layout software. I haven’t used it, but I’ve heard good reviews.
• Electrical Engineering Circuits and Software Archive: An extensive collection of software.
• National’s Simple Switcher: A DC-DC converter design software.
• Bob Pease’s Bandgap Design: A great discussion on bandgap design.