PlanarEM - Integrated Planar Electromagnetic Solver

ANSYS DesignerRF includes PlanarEM for engineers designing RF and wireless circuits and planar antennas. PlanarEM is a 3-D planar EM (method of moments) field simulation tool that provides dynamic parametric co-simulation for direct S-, Y-, and Z-parameters and Full-Wave SPICE extraction for near- and far-field radiation analyses. PlanarEM is included in DesignerRF or may be purchased as a standalone tool.


A 16 by 16 antenna array solved with Planar EM tool in DesignerRF shows current distribution on array elements and gain pattern.

Design Technologies
PlanarEM supports 3-D layered media typically used in LTCC, MMIC, RFIC, RFID, IC and PCB structures. Specific structure types include:

  • Simultaneous cavity and open structures
  • Periodic structures for infinite array and frequency selective surfaces
  • Black box circuit elements
  • Finite grounds and cutouts
  • Thin film resistors
  • Edge ports, coax ports and plane wave excitations

Solver Technology
DesignerRF PlanarEM incorporates many solver technologies to handle the largest designs and types of design technologies:

  • Direct, iterative and new fast-solver method of moments
  • Rapid frequency sweeps
  • Full thick-metal solver for edge and side wall coupling
  • Mixed element meshing for highest accuracy
  • Unlimited number of excitations
  • Full design parameterization
    • Geometry, cutouts
    • Stack-up, material properties

Design Integration 

  • Dynamic links to circuit and system designs within DesignerRF desktop
  • Physical hierarchy for design re-use
  • Geometry import/export
    • DXF/DWG
    • GDSII
    • AnsoftLinks
    • Gerber export
  • Model export
    • S-parameters
  • Static (Touchstone®)
  • Multi-dimensional (NMF)
    • MATLAB
    • Full-Wave SPICE
    • Lumped circuit
  • Full-featured layout editor
  • Distributed solve and multi-core simulation options

Design Responses
PlanarEM provides advanced reporting to support circuit and antenna applications:

  • Linear transfer functions
    • S, Y and Z responses
  • Near fields
  • Far fields
  • 2-D and 3-D visualization and animation
  • Post-processing variables
    • Design variations that do not incur extra simulation time
    • Excitations, loading and de-embedding
  • Antenna/FSS specific response
    • RCS
    • Cross- and co-polarization
    • Gain and power
    • Axial ratio and directivity