EECS 411

Microwave Circuits

Advanced Design System (ADS)

Quick Start

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 1. Introduction
This document shows how to use ADS 2016 in the design of matching circuits. It begins with an
ideal circuit simulation of a matching circuit, implemented with ideal lumped elements and ideal
transmission-lines. The ideal transmission-lines and the lumped components are then replaced
by microstrip transmission-lines. While dealing with these cases, the details of S-parameter
simulation, line calculator, parameter sweeping, and design optimization tools will be introduced.

2. Start ADS

 StartAll ProgramsMCAD ECAD MCAE ToolsAdvanced Design System

2013.06Advanced Design System 2013.06 (64-bit Simulations)
 Launching via CAEN: Open CAEN Software BrowserLaunch ADS 2016 update 1.3
from the Cloudpaging Player
• For DesignFlow Settings, keep all default settings and press Finish

3. Creating a Workspace and Library

From the ADS main window,

 Select FileNewWorkspace… The New Workspace Wizard opens.

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 Click the Next button at the bottom. Type an appropriate name (for this lecture:
Tutor1_wrk) in the “Workspace name”. Create the directory where ADS files willbe

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 stored. Make sure the directory for your workspace is saved under N:\windat.V2\... in
order to retrieve your data from other CAEN computers.

 Click Next and select the libraries you will use. We will use the ADS Analog/RF libraries
throughout EECS 411.

 Click Next and enter a library name for your work, or use the default.

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 Click Next to select the technology (0.0001 mil layout resolution).

 Click Next and review the Summary. Make changes if necessary, or click Finish.

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 The workspace and library are created.

4. Creating a New Schematic View

 Create a new schematic by selecting FileNewSchematic

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The New Schematic window opens. Type an appropriate name (Ideal_matching) in the Cell.

 Click OK and cancel the “help” option.

An empty schematic named schematic opens.

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 5. Design Example
In this example, we will design and simulate a matching network which matches a load with an
impedance of 30+j*80 Ohms to 50 Ohms at 1 GHz as shown below.

To draw the circuit, follow the procedure explained below.

 To place the load

 Choose “Eqn-Based Linear” from “Palette list” pull-down menu and then select a
“Z1p_Eqn” component from “Component Palette”.
 Place it in the schematic window (left click and then Esc) and double click to edit
the parameters. Set Z [1, 1] = 30+j*80.
 Click the component and rotate appropriately by using short cut “Ctrl + R”.

Palette list

“Z1p_Eqn” component
Component Palette

 To place the ideal transmission line

 Choose “TLines-Ideal” from Palette list and then select “TLIN” from Component
Palette.

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  Place it in the schematic window and set Z = 50 Ohm, E = 141.8 (degree) and F
= 1 GHz.

 To place the capacitor

 Choose “Lumped-Components” from “Palette list” and then select “C” from
Component Palette.
 Place it in the schematic window and set C = 6.53 pF.

 To connect the components and place the ground, use “Insert GROUND” and “Insert
WIRE” (Insert WIRE short cut: Ctrl + W) icons as shown below.

Insert GROUND Insert WIRE

Now, your circuit should look like this.

6. Simulation Setup
ADS has several simulation methods. You need to specify the type of simulation. Here is a brief
description of some simulation methods and their applications.

 DC: Solves for the operating point of active devices.

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  AC: The AC simulation performs a small-signal, linear AC analysis. As part of the
analysis, the DC operating point is calculated, and any nonlinear devices are linearized
around that operating point. This analysis does not generate harmonics or exhibit
compression. An AC simulation enables you to obtain small-signal transfer parameters,
such as voltage gain, current gain, trans-impedance, trans-admittance, and linear noise.
Applications: Filter, Amplifier.

 S-Parameter provides linear S-, Y-, or Z- Parameters, linear noise parameters, trans-
impedance, and trans-admittance. It can be used to achieve many goals of the AC
simulator. Applications: Filters, couplers, amplifiers, matching networks. The S-
parameter simulation can be used for both passive and active network small signal
analysis. It is the most important simulation method for linear microwave circuits.

 HB (Harmonic Balance) is a nonlinear mix domain (frequency and time domains)

solver. Only the steady state results are obtained. Application: Large Signal Amplifiers,
Mixers, Oscillators. It is the most popular simulation method for nonlinear circuits.
It does not provide start up and transient data.

 Transient solves a nonlinear system entirely in the time domain through finite difference
approximation of time-derivatives. It is used to simulate both the transient as well as the
steady state behavior of circuits.

Throughout EECS 411, you will be using S-parameters analysis for linear circuits and HB
analysis for nonlinear circuits. The matching network used in this tutorial is a linear passive
circuit. Therefore, it is simulated through S-parameters analysis.

 Choose “Simulation-S_Param” from Palette list and then select “S_Param” and place it
in the schematic.

 Double click it and set the frequency sweep type to “linear” and set the frequency start from
0.5 GHz and stop to 1.5 GHz with 0.01 GHz steps and click “Apply”.

 You can choose/change network parameters to be simulated (S-, Z-, and Y

corresponding to scattering, impedance and admittance parameters, respectively) from
the “Parameters” tab.

 Click “OK” to close the dialog box.

In S-parameters analysis, you are required to set terminations at the ports of your circuit. This is
because the scattering parameters are calculated when the circuit ports are terminated
(matched to 50 ohms).

 Select “Term” from Palette and place it in to the schematic. Each “Term” represents a
microwave port in the schematic.

 Connect the “+” and “-” nodes of “Term” to your matching circuit (see the following
figure)

 By double clicking on the “Term” component you can set the termination impedance. It is
by default 50 ohms. Leave it as default.

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Now, your circuit should look like this.

Click on the “simulate” icon (Shortcut: “F7”) to run simulation. A window is launched, which
shows the simulation progress. After the simulation is done, a “data display” window pops up.

Simulate

7. Simulation Results
A data display window is used to view and manipulate simulation results. In the data display
window, you can write mathematical equations to post-process the simulation data.

When your simulation is done, a data display window pops up with the same name as the simulated
schematic design name.

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 Item Palette

Rectangular plot

Smith

Equation

Select “Rectangular Plot” from Item Palette and place it in the window. A dialog box (Plot Traces
& Attributes) appears asking you to select parameter(s) to plot. The parameters available to plot
are listed on the left side.

To view the performance of your matching circuit, you should display the input reflection
coefficient or S(1,1).

 Select S(1,1) and then press “Add” button.

 Select “dB” to view the data in dB format and then click “OK”.

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The resulting plot should look like as follows.

As it shown above, the reflection coefficient is around -30 dB, indicating a well-
designed matching network at the design frequency of 1 GHz.

You can also plot the reflection coefficient on the smith chart.

 Select “Smith” from Item Palette and select S(1,1) to be plotted.

 To place a marker on the graph, use marker icons (Shortcut: “Ctrl + M”).

Markers

 Then, click on some point on the S(1,1) graph.

 Move the marker to the point at which the frequency is 1 GHz.

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As you can see, the input impedance at 1 GHz is Z0*(1.05+j*0.027) ohms (by default, Z0
is 50 ohms), which is very close to 50 ohms.

8. Manipulating Simulation Results

The ADS provides you the ability to perform post-simulation data processing. This can be done
by writing mathematical equations using output variables. For example, having the phase
response of a filter, you can find its derivative with respect to frequency to determine the filter
group delay.

As another example, suppose you are asked to determine the amount of power delivered to the
load. The output variable of your circuit is the reflection coefficient or S(1,1). From circuit theory,
you know the reflected power is equal to input power times the |Γ|2, where Γ is the reflection
coefficient.

So the transmitted power is input power times the (1-|Γ|2). Assuming a 1 mW input power, plot
the power delivered to the load vs. frequency.
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To plot, you need to write the suitable equation in the data display window by following the
procedure:

 Select “Equation” from Item Palette and place it in the data display window. The “Enter
Equation” box shows up. On the right side the simulation output variables are listed
including S(1,1).
 Type “P_d=0.001*(1-sqr(abs(S(1,1))))” in the “Enter equation here:”. In this equation
“sqr” performs squaring and “abs” returns the absolute value of the variable. To see a
list of available functions click on “Function help”.

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To plot the delivered power versus frequency
 Select “Rectangular Plot” from Item Palette
 Select “Equations” from “Datasets and Equations” pull down menu and then select P_d.

Plot the “Delivered Power” in both linear and dBm format. How? Show them to your GSI.

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 9. Microstrip Transmission Lines
Up to now, you have used ideal transmission lines. As its name implies, an ideal transmission
line does not suffer from losses, dispersion, etc. When fabricating planar circuits, we need to
realize the transmission lines with microstrip lines. Since the substrate and conductor loss of
microstrip lines as well as junction discontinuities affect the circuit performance, these effects
need to be considered in the final design. Hence, we need to use the microstrip line model in
ADS to simulate the planar circuits. In this section, the designed matching circuit will be realized
using microstrip lines.

In the main window,

 Create a new schematic by selecting FileNewSchematic

 Save the new schematic as “Microstrip_matching”.

First, you need to give ADS the substrate specifications.

 From Palette list select “TLines-Microstrip” and then select “MSUB” from Component
Palette. This component represents the substrate.
 Set its parameters as below:

H (height): 30 mil
Er (dielectric constant): 3.5
Cond (conductivity): 5.8e7
T: (conductor thickness): 0.67 mil
TanD (dielectric loss tangent): 0.0016

 Leave other parameters as default.

In the design of the matching network, we used ideal transmission lines with Z0 = 50 Ohm and
E=141.8°. For microstrip lines, characteristic impedance (Z0) and electrical length (E) are
determined by microstrip line’s physical dimensions (width and length). Therefore, we need to
convert electrical parameters of ideal transmission lines to physical parameters of microstrip
lines, which can be done through ADS “LineCalc”.

In the schematic window

 Start “LineCalc” from “ToolsLineCalcStart LineCalc”.

 Select the component type to be “MLIN”, standing for Microstrip line.
 Type parameters in “Substrate Parameters”, “Component Parameters”, and “Electrical”
sections as shown below.

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 Click on “Synthesize“. The physical dimensions of the line are returned in the Physical
section.

 Now go back to schematic window and select an “MLIN”.

 Set the W and L parameters as given by LinCalc: W=66.9 mil, L=2809.4 mil. Do not
forget to include units in the quantities on the schematic window.

 Copy everything from the “Ideal_matching” schematic and paste it onto

the “Microstrip_matching” schematic.
 Replace “TLIN” with “MLIN” and delete TLIN.

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  Press simulate button (or Shortcut: “F7”) to run simulation.

A data display window with the name of your schematic (Microstrip_matching) pops up.

 Plot S(1,1) in dB on a rectangular plot.

 Also plot S(1,1) on the Smith chart.

To compare the ideal case design with the microstrip design, you can plot S(1,1) from ideal and
microstrip simulation on the same plot. To do this:

 Double click on the Smith chart.

 Select “Ideal matching” from “Datasets and Equations” pull-down menu. This takes you
to the dataset of ideal simulation.
 Select S(1,1) and add it to “Traces”.

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Now you have the both simulation results on the same plot.

As you can see the microstrip simulation result is slightly different from the ideal simulation
result.

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 10. Parameter Sweep
At microwave frequencies, capacitors and inductors are usually realized with open or short
circuited stubs. In this section, we will replace the capacitor in the matching network with an
open circuited stub. Short circuited stubs are not usually preferred because their fabrication
requires via hole(s) through the substrate. Furthermore, short circuited stubs short out any DC
voltage on the line, making biasing of active circuits somewhat complicated.

Based on the equations you will learn in EECS 411 (reference: D. M. Pozar, Microwave
Engineering 4th ed,, pp. 228-241), we can calculate the length of an open stub so that
electrically it appears as a 6.53-pF capacitor. The other way of finding the length of the stub is to
place an open-circuited stub (see MLOC on the Component Palette) and use parameter sweep
to obtain the same input impedance as a 6.53-pF capacitor. We will do the latter in this section.

 In the “Microstrip_matching” schematic, click FileSave as. Save a copy of

“Microstrip_matching” schematic as “All_microstrip_matching”.

 Delete the capacitor and place a “MLOC” (find MLOC on the palette) component with
“W=66.9 mil” and “L=LLL mil” instead. Make sure the units are in “mil”.

You need a “MTEE_ADS” component to connect the two microstrip lines together. This
“MTEE_ADS” models the effect of the discontinuity at the intersection of the two microstrip lines.

 Select “MTEE_ADS” from Component Palette and set all the W values to 66.9 mils.
 Connect the transmission lines and the termination to the ports of “MTEE_ADS”.

Since you have a variable in your schematic you should define it.

 Click on the “Var” icon in the toolbar and place it in the schematic.

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 Insert VAR: Variable Equation

 Define a variable with the name LLL with an initial value; say 100.
 Double click on “S-PARAMETERS” solver and set the frequency to be single valued at
1.0 GHz.

Now you should tell ADS to change the value of LLL and simulate the circuit for every value. To
do so,

 Choose “Simulation-S_Param” from Palette list and select “ParamSweep” from the
component palette.
 Double click on it and set “Parameter to sweep” to LLL.
 Set the range of LLL variations to 10-2000 with steps of 1.
 Click on the simulation tab and set “Simulation1” to “SP1” Note the name of S-parameter
simulation. Click OK.

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Your circuit should look like as follows:

Run the simulation. A data display window is launched to see the results. We want to plot
S(1,1) vs. the values of LLL.

 Choose a rectangular plot and select S(1,1).

 Press “ADD vs” button and ask to plot dB values vs. LLL.
 Place “Insert A Min Marker” on the graph.

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As you see, for the LLL value of 1254 mils the load is matched. To see the frequency response
of your circuit with LLL=1254,

 First set the variable LLL value to be 1254.

 Then disable the “PARMETER SWEEP” component by “right
clickcomponentDeactivate/Activate”.
 Set the frequency range of simulation to 0.5-1.5 GHz with the Step-size of 0.01 GHz.

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  Run the simulation and plot S (1,1).

11. Optimization
ADS includes a powerful optimization toolbox with many optimization methods. However, it
should be noted that optimization is only used as the last step to finalize your design because it
is often blind and can provide unreasonable solutions. Therefore, optimization cannot be a
substitute for actual and rigorous circuit design.

In this section, you will use circuit optimization to finalize the design a matching network.
Suppose we want to design a matching network for previous load at the different design
frequency such as 1.1 GHz. We can use the technique in the previous sections to design the
circuit. Another way is to use optimization, since the new design frequency 1.1 GHz is very
close to 1 GHz. We will define the goals for ADS and ask it to change the variables in such a
way to achieve the goal.

 Save a copy of the “All_microstrip_matching” as “Optimization_matching”.

 Delete the “PARAMETER SWEEP” component.
 Set the frequency start to 0.5 GHz and stop to 1.5 GHz with 0.01 GHz steps
 Define LLL1 and LLL2 variables.
 Set the length of the transmission lines (the one connected to the load) to “LLL1 mil” and
that of open-circuited stub to “LLL2 mil”.

We want ADS to change these variables so that the load is matched to 50 ohms at 1.1 GHz. So,
we should define the goal for optimization. The goal is to get dB(S(1,1))<-24 dB at 1.1 GHz.

 Choose “Optim/Stat/DOE” component from Palette list

 Select “MeasEqn” . This component is used to define the parameter we want to
optimize. Here we want to optimize dB(S(1,1)).
 So double click on “MeasEqn” and define “Meas1=dB(S(1,1))”.

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After defining the measurement, the goal should be specified so that S(1,1) is smaller than -24
dB at 1.1 GHz.

 Select “Goal” from Component Palette and set its parameters as shown below

Now we need to specify which variables should be changed in the optimization process.

 Double click on “VAR” component, select LLL1, click on “Tune/Opt/Stat/DOE Setup”.

Select “Optimization” tab and set its parameters as

Optimization Status: Enabled

Format: +/- Delta %
Delta %: 20

 Repeat the same process for the variable LLL2.

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We need to specify the optimization method and number of iterations.

 Select “Optim” from Component Palette and place it in the schematic.

 Double click on “Optim” and choose the “Random” as Optimization Type and set the
Number of iterations to 1000. Click OK.

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Now the schematic window looks like the following:

Click “Optimize”.

Optimize

“Optimization Cockpit” pops up. This window shows you the optimization progress.

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If your goals are satisfied, you can update the design from the “Update Design” button on the
left column. If the goals have not satisfied yet, and you believe you need more iterations, you
can increase the iteration number from this window without going back to schematic page.

After optimization meets all goals, update your design such that updated variable values for the
lengths are seen on the schematic window. Close the “Optimization Cockpit”, run the
simulation, and plot the S(1,1) in dB. Note that your optimized values (lengths LLL1 and LLL2)
can be different from the values shown in this tutorial, but optimization goal should still be
satisfied (S11 < -24 dB at 1.1 GHz).

Show your final result to your GSI.

References: http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pc-1297113/advanced-design-system-
ads?&cc=US&lc=eng

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 ADS HW 1
Design a matching network which matches a load with an impedance of 100-j*50 Ohms to 50
Ohms at 5 GHz. You can choose any values for your matching network unless otherwise
specified.

1. You need to use one ideal 75-ohm transmission line and one shunt ideal lumped
element (capacitor or inductor) for your matching network. Attach your schematic and
rectangular plot of S11 in dB from 3 to 7 GHz. Use a marker at 5 GHz to clearly show
the matching performance.

2. Replace your ideal transmission line and lumped element with a 75-ohm microstrip
transmission line and a 50-ohm microstrip stub, respectively. Use the same substrate
specifications used in this ADS tutorial. Capacitance can be implemented with open-
circuited stub (MLOC) and inductance can be implemented with short-circuited stub
(grounded MLIN as shown below).

Attach your schematic and rectangular plot of S11 in dB from 3 to 7 GHz. Use a marker
at 5 GHz to clearly show the matching performance.

3. Optimize the lengths of microstrip transmission line and microstrip stub in your matching
circuit such that matching is performed at 4.5 GHz. Attach your schematic and
rectangular plot of S11 in dB from 3 to 6 GHz. Use a marker at 4.5 GHz to clearly show
the matching performance.

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