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Square Spiral Simulation-1

§  To start designing this device, first click on Model   located in your Control Panel.

§  Go to the Options drop down menu, select Units, and set your length to Microns.

§  Then, in the Options drop down menu, select Settings.

§  Make sure you have a metal at the bottom of your substrate by selecting Yes for Metal at Bottom, and set your Frequency Range from 1 to 100GHz, then press OK.

§  Turn off the radiation feature by selecting No for Radiation.

§  You can make all your necessary changes to Dx, Dy, and Dz in the Control Panel. Keep in mind, however, that these values need to be lower than the Max value posted above (with Max being a function of the dielectric constant, the frequency range, and the mesh density).  Set Dx=10, Dy=33.3, Dz=10. (Tip: for faster simulations, Dx, Dy and Dz may be ste as close as possible to MAX, which can be achieved by increasing/decreasing the maximum frequency range in the Options->Settings)  
o  You can also set proper bridge depth (if applicable), line width  and mesh density  in Settings, which will help the software generating a proper initial mesh.
o   mesh density is in cells/wavelength, the wavelength here is the minimum one associated with the upper limit of the simulation frequency range.

§  Go to Chip Designer by clicking on the icon. You can now start editing your metal in 2D.

§  Click on the Edit drop down menu and select Change Grid Dimensions. Set the dimensions to 35x40.

§  To start editing your metal design shape, first click on the Draw Rectangle icon, then click and drag to form your first rectangular shape. You can edit your metal shapes’ dimensions and location by Going to Edit Modeand:

o   Using your mouse to click, drag and resize your shapes, or just clicking on the metal shape and using your arrow keys to position it.

o   Or you can just click on the desired shape, and manually enter its exact dimensions and location in the Properties panel located on the right.

To get out of Edit Mode, simply click on the  icon again.                                   

§  Set the properties of your square spiral as:

and your design would look like:

§  Add a bridge at the center of the domain:

§  Add two more metal rectangles (connected to ports) to complete your metal design using the following parameter tables:

and the 2-D views of the design should look like this:

§  To finalize your design, you will now need to add port. To do so, simply click on the port symbol, and then add the port to your metal. When you are done adding your port, press Esc on your keyboard.  (Tip: Remember to use the View functions such as Pan and Rotate to have a better visual of the port area) 

The overall design would be like this:

§  Now that you ready to start running the simulation by clicking on the Simulation button.

§  When it is completed, you can view the Results by clicking on.

§  When you first open up your Results window, the two graphs should look blank.

§  To start viewing the graph results, click on the desired Port File located in the S-Parameter and Smith Chart Control Panels.

§  The curves of S11 and S21 are shown below:

§  You can set the exact specifications of your graph by changing the Range in your S-Parameter and Smith Chart Control Panels.

It can be seen that the square spiral acts as a low pass filter, whose cut off frequency is around 37 GHz.

See also