AWR®

Success
Story

Mimix Broadband Solves an Entire MMIC Chip

Using AXIEM 3D Planar EM Software

AXIEM Challenge:
To outperform in speed and complexity any other commercial EM solution Application:
Result: MMIC
Only AXIEM can solve the entire structure. Other commercial/competing EM
AWR Software:
point-tools necessitate a divide & conquer approach.
Microwave Office®
AXIEM™
CUSTOMER BACKGROUND
Mimix Broadband, Inc. supplies high performance gallium arsenide (GaAs)
semiconductors from DC to 50 GHz for RF, microwave and millimeter-wave
applications. Mimix has offices in Houston, Sydney, Belfast and Hsinchu, and offers
a unique combination of semiconductor design expertise and communications
systems background to develop state-of-the-art RF, microwave and millimeter-wave
(mm-wave) semiconductors. Mimix markets a highly diversified product line that
serves the top tier telecom, satellite and defense companies worldwide.

THE DESIGN CHALLENGE

Mimix is designing a mm-wave converter using an innovative design in the passive
circuitry. If the design technique works the way Mimix believes, they can achieve
very aggressive specs for system performance without having to use larger,
conventional mm-wave structures resulting in larger die size and thus greater cost.
Only by solving the entire structure can Mimix designers verify their design ideas. “We were unable
to EM this entire
THE SOLUTION structure using
Mimix was unable to electromagnetically (EM) simulate the entire monolithic any other EM
microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) circuit, which includes more than 100 solver and turned
ports and 100K unknowns, using other EM solvers and turned to AWR to to AWR to give
take the AXIEM™ challenge. The result: AXIEM solved
it a try. The
the entire structure on a desktop PC.
insights gained
With an electromagnetic
as unveiled by
solution to the full
chip, Mimix can begin AXIEM opens
to explore a deeper up new vistas in
understanding of the mm-wave design
circuit’s physics and open for Mimix.”
up new vistas in mm-wave
Dr. Simon Mahon
design. Director of MMIC Design
Mimix Broadband, Inc.
www.mimixbroadband.com
The MMIC mm-wave converter circuit has more than
100 ports and 100K unknowns. AXIEM was able to
electromagnetically solve the entire chip.

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Tel: +1 (310) 726-3000 Fax: +1 (310) 726-3005 www.awrcorp.com
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