Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: The MathWorks | Subject: RF Toolbox 2
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 15 December 2006
Added support for signal integrity
engineering
The MathWorks has introduced RF Toolbox 2, which includes new functions that enable signal integrity engineers to design, model, analyse and visualise networks of Radio Frequency (RF) components
The MathWorks has introduced RF Toolbox 2, which includes new functions that enable signal integrity engineers to design, model, analyse and visualise networks of Radio Frequency (RF) components commonly found in high-speed digital electronics Now engineers can better model the impedance differences and reflection effects compromising signal distortion that occur with high-speed semiconductor devices connected to backplanes and printed circuit boards
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 22 Feb 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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By combining the new modelling capabilities of RF Toolbox with the power of Model-Based Design in Matlab and Simulink, engineers can significantly reduce the time required to develop I/O circuitry for these devices used throughout the aerospace, defence, communications and automotive industries.
RF Toolbox 2 eliminates the need for manually building transmission line models from measured data to test I/O circuit designs.
Instead, engineers can quickly model transmission lines as rational functions, a type of behavioural model that is faster, more accurate and provides greater insight into transmission line characteristics than traditional alternatives like inverse fast Fourier transforms (IFFTs).
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The added capabilities in RF Toolbox 2 complement the product's existing support for designing, modelling and analysing networks of RF components in wireless communications and radar projects.
Applying the same workflow, the new version helps engineers design for signal integrity by letting them use network parameters to specify RF filters, transmission lines, amplifiers and mixers, either directly or by their physical properties.
Network parameters can be generated from within Matlab or read in from external data.
When data describing the response of the backplane is imported into RF Toolbox, it generates a rational function model that can be exported as a test environment either into Simulink or directly into a Verilog-A-compatible circuit simulator from an electronic design automation (EDA) vendor.
RF Toolbox 2 also provides Smith charts and rectangular and polar plots for visualising data.
"RF Toolbox is based on the proven Matlab environment and is flexible enough to fit into any company's signal integrity workflow," said Colin Warwick, technical marketing manager at The MathWorks.
"Engineers can execute RF Toolbox functions from the Matlab command line, the RF Toolbox GUI or from their own Matlab scripts and functions".
RF Toolbox 2 is available immediately for the Microsoft Windows, UNIX, Linux and Macintosh platforms.
UK list prices start at GBP800.
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