Selecting the right electromagnetic simulator

Fuelled largely by ever high levels of circuit integration and complexity, the use of electromagnetic (EM) field solvers is becoming more and more important to many RF/Microwave designers and high speed digital designers. Whilst commercial computer aided design (CAD) tools are widely used in the industry for analysing circuits using a circuit theory approach the use of EM field solvers is less pervasive and for many, EM simulation is regarded as something of a 'Dark art'.

Several key EM simulation technologies have emerged over recent years, these include the Method of Moments (MoM), Finite Element (FEM) and Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) solutions. Although in principal these technologies could be used to solve the same problems there are often good practical reasons why one particular simulator is better suited to solving a particular problem type. This paper will outline three of the key EM simulation technologies and attempt to compare and contrast the relative merits of each.

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Originally published by Agilent Technologies at www.agilent.com as "Which Electromagnetic Simulator Should I Use?".