For next-generation communication design, this entry-level product is also the latest addition to the company's existing VSS (Visual System Simulator) design suite.

Verify Initial Specs

The RFA system-level planning and specification tool for RF communication designers lets you create and verify the initial specifications of a radio design. The product helps find potential pitfalls early in the design process, at the system-level design phase, saving design cycle time and speeding time-to-market.

RFA delivers several new technologies that let you streamline the product development process. One component is the tool's RF Budget Analysis feature. It that provides the ability to make conventional RF cascaded measurements such as gain, noise figure, and third-order intercept, inclusive of image noise, along a communication link.

Frequency-Domain Simulation

RF Inspector, another component of RFA, is a frequency-domain simulation tool that helps determine the root cause or heritage of any inter-modulation product of an RF link. RF Inspector's analysis includes the effects of conversions, harmonics, inter-modulation, and noise. This lets you isolate the sources of unwanted interferers in order to better architect RF systems.

RFA, complemented with VSS, enables engineering teams to further analyze and simulate designs, and incorporate complex modulation sources and receivers with the same RF link created in RFA. At the same time, you can use the full suite of capabilities offered in VSS, including EVM (error vector magnitude), eye diagrams, and BER (bit error rate).

End-To-End Design

For its part, VSS is a comprehensive software suite for the design of complete end-to-end communications systems. The software helps reduce time-to-market by eliminating iterations and re-work. It promises to cut system cost by ensuring that components aren't over-specified, and thus unnecessarily expensive.

AWR's optional TestWave module integrates VSS seamlessly with instruments from leading test equipment vendors, providing a means for virtual hardware prototyping.

Voltage Domain Models

AWR's latest VSS 2006 spin, for RFIC (RF integrated circuit) designers, includes RF models in the voltage domain. A VSS RF budget analysis feature now includes measurements to provide greater insight into defining the right component specs.

Moreover, core VSS functions have been expanded with new measurements, additional models, and improved existing models. In addition, VSS 2006 addresses the needs of baseband system designers by enabling bit-accurate simulations. The latest VSS 2006 executables also provide signal models for the most current communications standards.

Price And Availability

RFA will be available directly from AWR and distribution channels, starting at about $4000/year, depending on configuration. A full production release is scheduled for the first quarter of 2007.

Click here for a VSS 2006 datasheet. The datasheet for RFA will be available on AWR's Web site in the near future.

For more details, contact Applied Wave Research, Inc., 1960 East Grand Ave., Suite 430, El Segundo, Calif. 90245. Phone: 310-726-3000.

Applied Wave Research, 310-726-3000, www.appwave.com