CST E-News March 2008

Welcome to the March edition of CST's E-News, our series of regular news and feature updates. We hope that you find the contents relevant, interesting and informative. Any feedback and suggestions for future editions is welcome.

News in brief

1. Acquisition of Flomerics EM Business Line completed
2. New CST website
3. CST STUDIO SUITE – new transient thermal solver released
4. Synopsys HSPICE Integrator Program
5. CST exhibits at CDNLive! 2008
6. www.cst.com - application notes
7. University Application Award 2007 and 2008
8. Calendar of events

Acquisition of Flomerics EM Business Line completed

The acquisition of the EM business line was closed as planned on January 31st 2008, including the transfer of EM technology, namely the products MICROSTRIPES and FLO/EMC.

From February 1st, the former Flomerics EM team has joined CST and its distribution network. Users of CST MICROSTRIPES™ are now able to get continued support from the CST hotline. The EMC edition of CST MICROSTRIPES has now replaced FLO/EMC.

Through the acquisition, CST has gained complementary EM technology for its customers; of particular interest is the transmission line matrix (TLM) method, as an alternative Time Domain approach. CST MS features a powerful octree subgridding scheme and a number of very specific capabilities for the EMC market, particularly the compact models for structure details like airvents, slots and cables. In combination with the recently acquired SimLab products, CST has further enhanced its position as technology leaders in this market.

CST will continue to provide updates for CST MICROSTRIPES. Update 7.5.3 has just been released and is available for download from the CST support page. The next release, CST MICROSTRIPES 8, is previewed for the end of Q3/2008.

For more information visit www.microstripes.com

New CST website now online

We have completely overhauled the CST website. Besides numerous technical enhancements, we have implemented a complete redesign of its layout. New articles, presentations and features will continue to be added, and any suggestions are welcome. We hope you enjoy the new look & feel of www.cst.com.

CST STUDIO SUITE – new transient thermal solver released

One of the youngest members of the CST SUDIO SUITE™ solver family is the thermal solver. Introduced less then two years ago, it has become an inherent part of many customers' design workflow. It calculates temperature distributions as well as the heat flow, both quantities are of significant importance for devices operating on higher power levels.

It has the full capability of a state-of-the-art stationary thermal solver including heat sources and sinks, heat conduction, radiation and air convection. However it really comes into its own when coupled to other CST STUDIO SUITE™ solvers, since it can convert power loss simulated in CST MWS or CST PS solvers directly into temperature distributions.

With the last service pack the thermal solver received another significant enhancement. It can now not only simulate stationary conditions, but also the transient heating processes. The time domain (TD) thermal solver is now available within the standard thermal package.

The example to the left shows the transient heating process of a chip mounted on a PCB which gets switched on. Due to its heat capacity the cooling element reaches its temperature steady state only after several seconds.

Moreover, further improvements are under development, such as the inclusion of the bioheat equation. This will be able to take typical processes which occur inside biological tissues into account, such as blood perfusion or basal metabolic heating effects. The bioheat solver will find applications in for example the mobile phone and MRI markets. This extension will be available with the next release of CST STUDIO SUITE™ 2009.

CST - founding member of Synopsys HSPICE Integrator Program

Synopsis launched the HSPICE® Integrator Program on March 11th in order to promote integration between its HSPICE simulation solution and other electronic design automation (EDA) products. Having already collaborated with Synopsis in their in-Sync program, CST became one of the founding members of the new HSPICE Integrator Program.

We are now working on the integration of CST STUDIO SUITE™ with Synopsis' HSPICE simulator, HSPICE RF simulator, and WaveView Analyzer™. We are sure that the collaboration between HSPICE Integrator Program members will benefit you by improved workflow integration.

CST exhibits at CDNLive! 2008 EMEA

This years CDNLive! EMEA will be held in Munich, April 28-30, 2008.

CST will be exhibiting its software for the simulation of Signal Integrity, Power Integrity and general EMC/EMI problems to a wide audience of design engineers, predominantly working on package design and PCB layout.

As part of the Cadence Connections program we have developed a powerful interface to Cadence Allegro, with outstanding performance.

You can see some application examples on our web site.

www.cst.com - Application notes

The range of customer examples illustrated in the applications section of the CST website is being extended continuously.

Application notes showing how users apply CST STUDIO SUITE™ solvers to real-life problems include mobile phone antenna performance, combiner optimisation, connector design and antenna array simulation.

CST welcomes customer contributions to the articles section of our website.

University Application Award 2007 and 2008

The CST University Publication Award was granted for the fourth time in 2007. 3 papers have been selected by the committee:

• Dirk I.L. de Villiers, Pieter W. van der Walt, and Petrie Meyer; "Design of a Ten Way Conical Transmission Line Power Combiner", IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and techniques; February 2007; pp. 302-308
• Martin Bencsik, Richard Bowtell, and Roger Bowley; "Electric fields induced in the human body by time-varying magnetic field gradients in MRI: numerical calculations and correlation analysis", PHYSICS IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY; 2007; pp 2337-2353
• Guo Qing Luo, Wei Hong, Member, IEEE, Hong Jun Tang, Ji Xin Chen, Xiao Xin Yin, Zhen Qi Kuai, and Ke Wu, "Filtenna Consisting of Horn Antenna and Substrate Integrated Waveguide Cavity FSS"; IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 2005, pp. 3884-3896

The conical transmission line power combiner paper can be read as a CST application article.

The deadline for the paper submission to the 2008 award is approaching quickly.

Please send your contribution as soon as possible to info@cst.com. Contributions making reference to simulations made with one of CST's software tools are eligible for consideration. Three papers will be selected from the qualified transmittals and the respective university institutes will be equipped with an upgraded licence for one year.

There is one change with respect to the previous awards. An additional prize will be given to the best short paper (4 pages or less) in the competition.

Calendar of events

Check our calendar of events for the next CST event in your area.

Workshops
“Profit from Technology” - this workshop series is designed to offer RF & microwave, SI and EMC engineers an insight into the latest 3D simulation technology, focusing on CST STUDIO SUITE™ 2008.

Dates and locations: this series is currently running in North America and Europe; please check our website for more information.

Exhibitions
CST is exhibiting at conferences and exhibitions around the world.

Training sessions
Interested in improving your simulation skills? Regular training courses are held in CST's offices in Asia, Europe, and North America. Advance registration is normally required.

 

With kind regards,
Your CST Team

CST - Changing the Standards
Computer Simulation Technology
info@cst.com, www.cst.com