Agilent Technologies Inc. announced Electromagnetic Professional 2011.02, a new release of its 3-D electromagnetic modeling and simulation platform for creating 3-D models and analyzing the electrical performance of packages, connectors, antennas and other RF components.

Known as EMPro, the platform is tightly integrated with Agilent’s Advanced Design System for the design of RF and high-speed circuits, modules and PC boards. The new release features significant improvements in both accuracy and speed for modeling RF and high-speed components.

EMPro 2011.02 delivers new meshing technologies for both its time and frequency domain electromagnetic solvers. Meshing is the first step in an electromagnetic simulation and occurs when a 3-D model is segmented into tiny mesh cells.

For the finite-difference time-domain solver, EMPro 2011.02 adds a new meshing option that creates mesh cells that more closely conform to curved surfaces and non-orthogonal edges. Using this option, engineers can now realize more accurate results with fewer mesh cells required, while also reducing memory consumption and simulation time.

For the finite element-method frequency-domain solver, EMPro 2011.02 delivers several new meshing options that allow engineers to more precisely specify the desired mesh structure along conductor edges, surfaces and vertices. Doing so reduces the time it takes for the meshing algorithms to converge on a final, accurate mesh while increasing its accuracy. Additional meshing options improve simulation accuracy across the entire frequency band of the device by automatically refining the mesh at critical resonant frequencies.

EMPro 2011.02 also incorporates several new features that improve the tool’s performance and ease of use.