Transistor-level Simulations - Eldo
The most widely used CAD tool and simulator for RF IC Design in the Industry are Cadence and Spectre respectively. At this point of time, we don't have the resources to support their use in a classroom course. They are however regularly used by the Analog and Mixed-Signal IC group at IITM. You can find more information about their research work here.
For this course, we will be using the Eldo RF simulator from Mentor Graphics. It has all the capabilities of Spectre that are relevant to this course. However, if you have access to Cadence and Spectre through your research lab and and have prior experience working with them, you are welcome to use it for the projects.
You can find more information about installing and using Eldo here.
IBM 0.13um CMOS Process transistor models: ibm013.lib
[noise parameters have been added manually from some other process]
Sample Eldo netlist for L-match circuit: Lmatch.cir
Sample Eldo netlist for LNA simulation: lna.cir
Sample Eldo netlist for VCO simulation: vco.cir
Inductor Modelling - ASITIC
There are several tools that can be used for modelling integrated spiral inductors for RF Design. The choice of tool typically depends on desired accuracy, simulation time and cost. HFSS is the standard tool used for 3D full-wave electromagnetic field simulations. It models inductors and transmission lines to a high degree of accuracy, but also requires longer simulation times and can be expensive.
In this course, we will use ASITIC to model our inductors. This is a quick standalone tool that allows you to understand most of the tradeoffs in RF spiral inductor design. While you may never use it for your real-world designs, it is a good starting point for this class.
ASITIC technology file: ibm013.tek
Basic CAD Tutorial - ASITIC (brief) and Eldo
CAD Tutorial
[Expect this tutorial to get updated as we go along]