A new application note and business impact case study detail how Quasonix used a novel design flow combining NI AWR software and highly accurate Modelithics models to achieve first-pass success. The flow resulted in a 150 percent improvement in productivity for the design of a power amplifier (PA) used in the company’s advanced telemetry systems.
Developers of telemetry products must ensure excellent agreement between simulations and performance to be confident about their efforts to optimize these designs prior to manufacturing. The application note illustrates the use of accurate passive and nonlinear power transistor models based on the Modelithics’s CLR and Qorvo GaN libraries to facilitate a first-pass successful design flow for a two-stage telemetry amplifier using the NI AWR Design Environment platform, specifically Microwave Office circuit design software and AXIEM 3D electromagnetic (EM) planar simulator.
The complementary business impact case study presents the results of a return-on-investment (ROI) analysis by Quasonix designers to prove the benefits of this design flow, which improved engineering productivity by 150 percent due to a 3x savings in the development schedule, 3x fewer circuit design iterations and a 3x reduction in total cost.
“Instead of relying on multiple prototypes, our designers were able to use Microwave Office software combined with Modelithics models to optimize a harmonic filter for peak performance,” said Ted Longshore, senior RF engineer at Quasonix. “This approach eliminated several PCB spins, which shortened the circuit development cycle between one and two months.”
To learn more, readers can find the application note within the Resource Library on ni.com/awr and the business impact case study at awrcorp.com/customer-stories/quasonix-inc.
