APPLICATION SPOTLIGHT
High-Performance EM Computing Options
The increasing complexity of integrated designs has pushed the limits of computing capabilities beyond a single CPU
process. The ability to utilize remote and parallel computing can dramatically reduce the overall simulation time for
resource-intensive problems, as well as optimization routines requiring hundreds or thousands of iterations.
To provide designers with access to more compute power for complex designs, the AWR Design Environment platform has
evolved to support various remote/parallel simulation features. Remote computing allows users to set up an EM simulation in
the AWR AXIEM 3D planar analysis or AWR Analyst FEM solver on a local computer and simulate the structure on a different
computer. By setting up dedicated, remote computers for resource-intensive simulations, designers can use local computers
to continue working on other design tasks or perform smaller simulation problems.
Simulation Times for Different Configurations
Figure 1 illustrates the length of time it takes to run a simulation job with the four different options: local, local parallel, remote,
and remote parallel. The timeline illustrates how simulation time can be cut dramatically from almost an hour to six minutes,
depending on the configuration used.
Figure 1: Comparison of simulation times depending upon which computing configuration is used
Conclusion
Highly integrated RFIC, MMIC, and multi-technology modules are developed through powerful design software that benefits
from distributed computing in order to reduce simulation run times and streamline optimization. This application note demon-
strates how to use the latest high-performance remote and parallel computing features in AWR software to shorten
schematic simulation times considerably through remote, parallel, and remote/parallel configurations.
Read the full Using Parallel and Remote Schematic Simulation and Optimization to Reduce Design Time application spotlight.
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