RF Circuit Design, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 9 RF Design Tools

Electronic design automation (EDA) is a category of automated design tools used to develop and manufacture the hardware component of a range of electronic systems including field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)/programmable logic devices (PLDs), integrated circuits (ICs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), and systems-on-a-chip (SoCs). These systems often contain a mix of analog, digital and RF circuitry. While the analog and RF sections of the system make up a much smaller portion of the design than their digital counterpart, they are by far the most difficult to design, requiring substantially more time and expertise. In fact, in systems design, roughly 75% of the design time is spent on RF design. Of that 75%, 25% ...