CadenceTECHTALK: What’s New AWR Series – Advances in RF Nonlinear Stability Analysis

Date: Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Time: 9:00am PT/12:00pm ET

With wireless communication standards moving to higher frequencies and greater complexity, increased device gain and feedback can lead to RF amplifier instabilities that result in system failures. Amplifier instability is more common with the adoption of advanced-node, millimeter-wave semiconductor technologies that offer higher device fTs and gain, along with higher levels of system integration using compact, advanced electronic packaging, which result in more parasitic feedback and resonances. To reduce the risk of oscillations, designers need a fast and easy method to implement rigorous stability analysis to identify the root causes of a potentially unstable amplifier in a complex, high-performance system.

The latest release of AWR software from Cadence offers a new nonlinear gamma probe that provides admittance, impedance, and gamma measurement(s) to facilitate plotting the real and imaginary parts of the nodal and directional impedance measured with the gamma probe. The new probe supports multiple stability analysis techniques of RF networks for both small and large signal analysis in a non-invasive manner, providing the correct answer in the presence of feedback. This webinar will help designers understand how instabilities fundamentally arise in their circuits. We will review stability theory, discuss concepts such as loop gain, return difference, and driving point admittance (DPA), and apply these techniques to typical RF designs. Multiple examples will illustrate using the probe on real-life RF circuits.

Speaker:

Application Engineer Architect, Cadence Design Systems

Dustin Hoekstra is an applications engineer architect supporting the AWR products at Cadence. With over 20 years in the RF and microwave industry, Mr. Hoekstra has held applications and design positions at GaAs and GaN semiconductor manufacturing companies Cree, Excelics, and Filtronic. Part of the AWR team since 2005, Mr. Hoekstra currently supports many of Cadence’s top strategic customers. Mr. Hoekstra earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California at Berkeley.