0822 Mw Keysight Synopsys Collab Promo 62fe908047a29

Keysight and Synopsys Team to Validate Complex RF and mmWave Designs

Aug. 18, 2022

Native integration of Synopsys Custom Compiler with PathWave RFIC Design optimizes power and performance to more efficiently deliver 5G/6G designs.

David Maliniak

Related To: Microwaves & RF

The Overview

Keysight Technologies has broadened its collaboration with Synopsys with the integration of its PathWave RFIC Design (GoldenGate) that includes Synopsys’s Custom Compiler design environment and PrimeSim circuit simulation solutions. The integration will enable designers to validate complex RF and mmWave design requirements for 5G/6G system-on-chip (SoC) and subsystem designs in the Synopsys Custom Design Family.

Who Needs It & Why?

RFIC designs used for wireless data transmission, such as those in transceivers and RF front-end components, are gaining in complexity. This is especially true as designers of next-generation wireless systems look to enhance their capabilities with higher bandwidth, the ability to connect to more devices, lower latency, and greater coverage area. To achieve these goals, RF designers will want to simulate and evaluate RF performance to greater levels of accuracy.

The integration of PathWave RFIC Design (GoldenGate) simulation software, which models complex ICs, with Synopsys Custom Compiler that's part of the Synopsys Custom Design suite, addresses this challenge: It enables designers to achieve power and performance optimizations and efficiently deliver 5G and 6G designs.

Under the Hood

The native integration of Keysight's PathWave RFIC Design (GoldenGate) with Synopsys' Custom Compiler targets end-to-end workflows for increasingly complex wireless designs. Specifically, designers are able to perform harmonic balance and envelope simulations. It also affords access to Keysight's Virtual Test Benches, which reliably compute error-vector magnitude (EVM) and adjacent-channel power ratio early in the chip design and verification process.

In the integration of these tools, designers gain an enterprise-grade solution for RF and wireless design, delivering the following key benefits:

Complementary, high-capacity RFIC simulation solutions to validate complex SoCs with accurate electromagnetic (EM) models for RF and mmWave design blocks.
Improved productivity with defined common testbenches, measurements, and simulation setup.
Ability to meet complex RF and mmWave design requirements to facilitate the creation of 5G and 6G SoC and subsystem designs.
Compact test signals and fast distortion EVM simulations for both design and verification of RF circuits using modulated signals.
An energy-efficient design that improves power optimization, thermal/mechanical heat stress, and battery life.

This integration continues Keysight's strategic partnership with Synopsys. The company recently merged its PathWave RFPro with the Synopsys Custom Compiler design environment, enabling rapid and accurate design of wireless chips using TSMC's N6RF Design Reference Flow.

About the Author

David Maliniak | Executive Editor, Microwaves & RF

I am Executive Editor of Microwaves & RF, an all-digital publication that broadly covers all aspects of wireless communications. More particularly, we're keeping a close eye on technologies in the consumer-oriented 5G, 6G, IoT, M2M, and V2X markets, in which much of the wireless market's growth will occur in this decade and beyond. I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, developers, and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our contributor's packet, in which you'll find an article template and lots more useful information on how to properly prepare content for us, and send to me along with a signed release form.

About me:

In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy, leaving to rejoin the EOEM B2B publishing world in January 2020. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.