Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: Vector Fields | Subject: Concerto and Opera
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 23 May 2005
Virtual prototyping brings radical ideas
to market
The use of simulation software is today an essential part of the design cycle, not only optimising functional design and cutting material costs but increasing company profits.
The use of simulation software is today an essential part of the design cycle, not only optimising functional design and cutting material costs but increasing company profits by significantly reducing "time to market" Virtual prototyping provides engineers with the ability to establish fundamentals of a new project before building prototypes, and allows the economic assessment of the "what if" scenario
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 30 Jul 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Software orchestrates microwave modelling
Vector Fields has upgraded its Concerto software for three-dimensional analysis and design of microwave components such as antennas, waveguides, microstrips and microwave heating etc.
Electromagnetic simulator gains thermal module
The rate of development of the Opera suite of simulation software for electromagnetic analysis has increased recently with the strengthened team at Vector Field's Oxford headquarters.
Analysis of design at this stage also permits use of minimal materials content without jeopardising quality and reliability.
Concerto and Opera, software from Vector Fields of Oxford enable radical designs to be simulated and tested at a fraction of the cost of traditional trial and error methods.
In the microwave spectrum, where visualisation is inherently difficult, one company reduced development time for from 1 person-year per prototype, to one designer analysing 60 designs in a single month using Concerto.
Further reading
Simulation optimises design of antenna array
A circular polarised patch antenna has recently been simulated using software from Vector Fields, and the simulation considerably reduced the development time.
Simulation helps provide cost-effective screening
Electromagnetic simulation has substantially reduced the cost of the protective shields surrounding magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) suites at one Chicago hospital.
Software suite gains method-of-moments analysis
Vector Fields has signed an agreement to market the Clasp software developed by Abingdon based Culham Electromagnetics and Lightning.
This is a three dimensional high frequency modelling package, which uses the conformal finite difference time domain method and state of the art numerical algorithms and is specifically designed for microwave devices such as patch, slot, wire or horn antennas, waveguides, couplers, and filters etc.
Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates uses Opera-3D to shorten the design cycle for new generations of ion implanters.
Varian is an industry leader in design and manufacture of ion implant systems - semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits.
An important requirement is shorter beam lines to reduce effects of space charge and Tosca combined with Scala, both Vector Fields software packages, are used to predict the interaction of multiple magnets while simultaneously modelling the space charge of the ions, the trajectory of the ion beams and the electric fields within the implanter.
Ions pulled from a hot plasma source by extraction electrodes pass through magnetic fields that filter and shape the ion beam into a specific form to deposit a uniform dopant onto the wafer whilst smaller magnets measure dosage etc.
Critical design issues are the saturation of the magnet material, producing the correct energy range, and avoiding aberrations and stray beams, while understanding interaction will allow design optimisation, particularly beam length.
Tosca allowed designers to optimise each individual magnet, and then, as they are brought closer together to reduce the length of the beam line, study field interactions.
Rather than avoiding the issue of magnet interaction by keeping the magnets apart, simulation allowed the study of exactly how close the magnets could be placed before generating undesirable effects.
Meanwhile Scala simultaneously predicted space charge and ion trajectories enabling designers to incorporate ways of neutralising the unwanted space charge.
The ability to investigate different magnetic configurations, allowed the engineering team to quickly eliminate flawed ideas and concentrate only on innovative but effective solutions, and reduced time and costs of prototype builds, necessary with "prototype and analyse" methods used on all previous Varian implanters.
As it would take many months to design and optimise the magnet for a single segment of the implanter, the combined effect of using the simulation tools was a reduction in total design time from months to days.
A high accuracy simulation was needed by the Hitachi Laboratory, the research institute of Hitachi, for the design of a unique magnetic system to optimise high field conditions in the world-first superconducting open-air MRI system.
According to S Kakugawa, Senior Researcher: "The effects of the fields on MRI is central to the design and the magnets which result in greater image detail, have to be calculated to high accuracy".
The return yokes of the magnetic iron shield, necessarily axially asymmetric to accommodate an open area through which the patient must pass, generate a large amount of inhomogeneous magnetic field, which require a large number of iron correction pieces.
Tosca, pioneering high accuracy 3D design simulation software from Vector Fields based on more than 20 years of excellent correlation between simulated and measured results, provided the configurations and shapes of the iron.
The confidence in Tosca kept the need for prototypes to a minimum with consequent cost and time reductions in the preproduction phase of this leading edge product.
The Hitachi team maintain the high accuracy computation in Tosca was of great benefit.
NXT Technology, designers of the much acclaimed SurfaceSound and SoundVu, regularly use Vector Field's simulation packages on the innovative sound panels which use a small coil fixed to the panel to bend the surface which creates the sound waves.
Refining the system parameters by optimising the magnetic path and its interaction with the current carrying coil has been achieved using Opera simulation software from Vector Fields.
This enables the designer to maximise drive forces, and minimise flux losses using minimal magnetic material, thus reducing production costs.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Insitiute of Technology used Opera to evaluate the magnetic performance of actuator designs for the JW Space Telescope, successor to Hubble, in a short amount of time because no existing technology was suitable to accommodate the extremely cold environments of space.
Unlike Hubble, the mirrors are very thin membranes of carbon composites and a reflecting surface which is deformable by computer controlled actuators.
MIT collaborated with NASA on the development of the actuators based on super-conducting and magnetostrictive materials.
Due to the high number of design variables involved, "trial and error" methods were ruled out.
The superconducting materials considered, yttrium-barium-oxygen (YBCO) or bismuth-strontium-calcium-copper-oxygen (BSCCO) are charged with a magnetic field which attracts the reflective nickel surface.
Ease of use was a principal attraction of Opera a further advantage being its support for nonlinear analysis; the charging process for superconducting materials being nonlinear.
Properties of most, including such as Terzinol, were within the Opera materials library, to which those of YBCO and BSCCO could be entered after experimental determination.
For each actuator concept at least two dozen iterations were evaluated in Opera before two designs was committed to prototypes.
JWST is scheduled for launch about 2010.
• Vector Fields: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
