With ADS 2009, the folks at Agilent EEsof are targeting the needs of engineering community engaged in high-frequency & high speed front end co-design. This includes anyone working on 4G LTE smartphones, one of the few markets in commercial electronics that is facing likely growth this year. The challenges for designer include the need to remain backward compatible with 3G and 2G modes, supporting Bluetooth, Wifi and MIMO capabilities which means multi-antennas operating
over multi-frequency bands and squeezing this capability into smaller volumes and closer proximity with greater undesired interactions. Since costs & delays must be kept low, multiple available technologies are integrated onto the PCB as shown
instead of designing all onto an IC. This was discussed in greater detail in our February lead story - "The Dawn of Nano-scale SoP".

A leading component of the ADS 2009 co-design platform is the new interoperability with Cadence and Mentor backend design platforms, allowing the import of:

• Cadence Allegro PCB, Advanced Package Designer (APD) and SIP physical
design data for co-designing with active components

• Design Rule Check (DRC) results from Cadence Assura, Mentor Calibre or
Triquint MailDRC for viewing and correcting within ADS cost-effective
layout environment.

Agilent has also expanded the model supprt in ADS 2009 to include the new X-parameters, which can provide a "black-box" representation of non-linear devices characterized through test (using the Agilent N-VNA).