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AWR®

Success
Story

Meridian Medical Systems Applies Microwave


Office® To Improve the Treatment of a Critical
Heart Condition

AWR’s Software and TriQuint’s Foundry Process Make Company’s


Radiometer Development a Painless Procedure
Application:
Cardiology

CUSTOMER BACKGROUND AWR Software:


Microwave Office®
Some of the most interesting work in the microwave industry lies well outside
standard commercial wireless and military domains, and the products developed
by Meridian Medical Systems (MMS) for medical applications are compelling
examples. The company, founded in 1985 by industry luminary Dr. Kenneth
Carr, has applied the inherent characteristics of electromagnetic energy to
solve problems that have eluded other technologies. The result is a string
of awards for innovation from government and industry. MMS products use
microwave energy to generate heat, measure radiation and motion, and monitor
and maintain the temperature of blood and other fluids. Carr, an Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Life Fellow, is considered a pioneer in
the medical application of microwave technology, and has nearly 40 patents in
the discipline. He founded ferrite products manufacturer Ferrotec, which was
acquired by M/A-COM. Dr. Carr made significant contributions at M/A-COM,
retiring in 1990 as a group vice president and technical director. Since then he
has applied his talents exclusively to microwave medical technology at MMS.
“I’ve found Microwave
THE DESIGN CHALLENGE Office to be unique
Cardiac arrhythmia (when the heart beats too slowly, too fast, or irregularly) among EDA tools
is typically treated with a procedure called cardiac ablation, which selectively for its ability to make
destroys tissue to ensure that the “signal” controlling the heartbeat follows the design process
the proper path. A catheter is inserted into the patient’s leg that runs upward
comparatively simple.
and into the heart, where, through cryogenic cooling or electromagnetic or
Measurements
ultrasonic radiation, the target tissue is destroyed. None of these techniques,
however, are able to provide real-time feedback about how much energy to
we’ve made on the

apply while the doctor is performing the procedure. The temperature sensor in devices we received
conventional catheters can measure only the value in the tip, which is typically from TriQuint agree
cooled, so the value returned is not very precise. Without an accurate feedback extremely well with
mechanism, doctors tend to apply less-then-optimum energy levels to ensure the the Microwave Office
safety of the patient, which can reduce the procedure’s effectiveness.
simulation. In short,
we got back exactly
what we hoped for.”
Bob Allison
Vice president/engineering manager
Meridian Medical Systems
www.mms-llc.com
AWR
Success
Story

THE SOLUTION
To solve this problem, MMS is developing a catheter that combines the
ability to simultaneously deliver microwave radiation for tissue heating and a
radiometer (essentially a remote sensing device) fabricated as a microwave
monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) to sense the temperature of the
heart wall. The Dicke radiometer employed in the design obtains tissue
temperature measurements noninvasively and operates by comparing an
internal reference temperature with an actual radiometric measurement
and using the difference to calculate body temperature. Early results show
the technique to be extremely accurate. Although radiometers have been
used for years in applications ranging from measuring atmospheric and
The radiometer MMICs of the catheter were
terrestrial radiation from space to oceanographic remote-sensing, the designed by Microwave Office software along with
radiometer designed by MMS incorporates several proprietary technologies the TriQuint Semiconductor PDK.

that optimize its use for cardiac ablation.

How did Microwave Office software help deliver the solution?


Bob Allison, vice president and engineering manager at MMS, relied on
AWR’s Microwave Office electronic design automation (EDA) software
along with a process design kit (PDK) developed jointly by AWR and
TriQuint Semiconductor that accurately represents TriQuint’s foundry
process. Allison has used AWR tools since their earliest development,
but his experience with EDA tools, as well as with virtually every other
high-frequency design solution, dates back to the days of mainframe time-
sharing. “I’ve found Microwave Office to be unique among these tools for its
ability to make the design process comparatively simple,” says Allison. “It’s
created by engineers who understand the difference between designing a Microwave Office simulation results agreed well with
the actual measurements of the device.
microwave circuit and a digital one – and it shows in the software.”

How did the combination of AWR and TriQuint contribute to your


success? The seamless integration of Microwave Office software and
the TriQuint PDK enabled Allison to design the circuit, select the features
from the PDK library, perform design rule checking, and send the result
to TriQuint, all in a very short time. “The handoff to TriQuint was utterly
painless,” said Allison. “Designing and producing our radiometer MMIC
with Microwave Office and the TriQuint design kit provided an immense
productivity improvement. Measurements we’ve made on the devices we
received from TriQuint agree extremely well with the Microwave Office
simulation. In short, we got back exactly what we hoped for.”

AWR, 1960 East Grand Avenue, Suite 430, El Segundo, CA 90245, USA
Tel: +1 (310) 726-3000 Fax: +1 (310) 726-3005 www.awrcorp.com
Copyright © 2008 AWR Corp. All rights reserved. AWR, the AWR logo and Microwave Office are
registered trademarks of AWR Corp. All others are property of their respective holders.

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