EEE 5371

High Frequency Amplifiers

Introduction to ADS
for RF Circuit Design

Jonathan Bagby
Florida Atlantic University
Rev. 8/16

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 Software and Computers

This exercise is intended as an introduction to the use of Agilent’s Advanced

Design System (ADS) software for use in RF design. The software may be accessed
remotely via the Engineering Student desktop as described directly below in the
paragraph entitled “Access to Design Software.”

Access to Design Software

ADS 2016.01 may be accessed online using the VMware Horizon client. To
install the VMware client on your PC, go to tsg.eng.fau.edu, select Software, select
VMWARE, and follow the installation instructions found there.

Outline of Exercise

In this exercise, you will learn how to use ADS to design, simulate, fine-tune, and
produce a layout of a microstrip transmission line single-stub matching network. Along
the way, you will be guided through the steps from start to finish, beginning with
launching the ADS software, and ending with an optimized final design, complete with
schematic, simulation plots in rectangular and Smith chart form, and a layout of the
microstrip design, ready for fabrication on a PC board.

Launching ADS

During your first use of ADS, you must decide on a folder that you will use to
contain your ADS projects. I suggest that you create a new folder on one of your
network drives (such as your Z drive) and give it a suggestive title, such as
“ADS_Projects,” as described below. You will then specify this as the location where the
software should store your ADS project files.

Note that many of the steps that we will encounter may be performed in several
different ways, such as clicking on an icon or choosing an item from a menu list. We will
often simply use only one of the many possible methods in this document. Feel free to
explore your options and play around with the software; if you have saved your
intermediate results, the worst that can happen, the software crashing, can be easily
recovered from.

As a first step in this exercise, launch the ADS software from your Start menu as
shown below.

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The splash screen shows as the software launches:

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Select the ADS Inclusive license server as shown below by clicking OK.

The Workspace menu appears as shown below. We will create a new workspace for our
project in a folder called “ADS_Projects” on my Z drive. Choose “Create a new
workspace.”

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This creates the workspace ADS_Tutorial in the new Z:\ADS_Projects folder. Choose
Analog/RF in the next dialog:

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Choose millimeter resolution in the next dialog box:

Choose Finish. The Main project window appears:

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The Exercise

We are now ready to create a new schematic. This is accomplished by using the
pull-down menu File>New>Schematic or using the 6th icon at the top of the window,
“New schematic window:”

The schematic “Wizard” appears:

I usually Cancel this Wizard, which brings up a blank ADS Schematic page. Note that I
have resized the window to nearly full screen and I have zoomed out using the “–2” icon
at the top of the window.

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 We are now ready to build our circuit. This is accomplished in three steps. First,
select components in one of two ways, either by clicking on their icons or by typing their
names in the “Parts” window. Then place them on the schematic. Finally, wire them
together.

The first circuit element we add is a section of microstrip transmission line. It

may be obtained by typing its name, “MLIN,” into the Parts window (the blank window
on the figure above), or by choosing its icon from the parts list at the left side of the
window. We choose the latter course throughout this exercise. First, choose the
microstrip transmission line parts list, “TLines-Microstrip,” from the pull-down menu at
the top left of the window (it originally reads “Lumped Components”), as shown in the
figure below.

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 Now click on the microstrip line section icon, MLIN, in the list. When the cursor
is moved over the schematic, the microstrip line appears; clicking places the part on the
page. You may repeat this process of clicking to place multiple copies of the part on the
schematic; in order to end placing more parts of the same kind, press the “Escape” key.
At this point, your schematic should appear as shown below.

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The part may be moved; simply click on it, and hold the mouse button down while you
move the cursor. You may also copy, cut, and paste as usual with Windows applications.

We now adjust the length and width parameters of the microstrip line, W and L.
We will use a feature of ADS called “LineCalc” to calculate W and L for us, assuming
that we know the physical characteristics of the PC board used for fabrication, we have a
system impedance of Z 0 = 50 Ω , and the desired line length is L = 0.044 λ at an
operating frequency of f = 2 GHz . Launch LineCalc from the “Tools” menu, as shown
below:

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The result is the default LineCalc window:

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The first thing to do when using LineCalc is to change the units in all dialog boxes to the
ones desired; in our case, to millimeters ( mm ). Changing units in the middle of a
calculation often causes LineCalc to crash, necessitating a re-launch. Now enter the PC
board parameters on the left side of the screen: Er = 2.2 , H = 1.27 mm , T = 0 mm , and
Freq = 2 GHz . On the lower right side, enter the characteristic impedance
Z0 = 50 Ohm and “electrical line length,” E_Eff = 15.84 deg . This last number is
obtained from the line length L = 0.044 λ as follows:
E_Eff = ( 0.044 λ ) ( 360° λ ) = 15.84° . Also change the units on W and L on the right of
the window to millimeters.
Then click on the “Synthesize” button (the “up” arrow in the middle of the right
side of the window) to obtain the synthesis message:

Close this window: underneath is the window of results:

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This result tells us that the required microstrip line width is W = 3.914490 ! 3.914 mm
and the line length should be L = 4.799880 ! 4.800 mm . There are two ways to change
these parameters on the schematic; we will illustrate both techniques. To change the line
length, simply click on the number showing on the schematic (where it says L = 2.5 mm )
to highlight it, and then type in the new value of 4.800 . This is shown in the figure
below.

The second way to change the value of an element parameter is to double-click on

the element, which will open the “Edit parameters” dialog box shown below:

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Simply type in the new value, in this case W = 3.914 mm as shown, then click “Apply”
and then “OK.”

Next, we add a microstrip “tee,” which will serve as a shunt connection between
the microstrip line and the open-circuit microstrip stub. Further down in the “TLines –
Microstrip” menu, select the “MTEE” device (or type “MTEE” in the element menu) and
then click on schematic page to place the tee as shown:

Now change the width of all three arms of the MTEE, using either of the two methods
used for the MLIN: set all three widths W1, W2, and W3 to 3.914 mm . Next, we will
re-position the text box of the MTEE, and place it above the device so that it is out of the
way of the lower arm of the device. To accomplish this, press “Escape” to de-select the
tee, press F5, click on the MTEE, and then drag the text box above the device. These
steps are illustrated in the two figures below.

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 Next, insert an open-circuit microstrip stub on the schematic. Locate the device,
MLOC, on the menu (or type in MLOC) and place it on the schematic. Rotate the stub
by 90° by clicking on the “Rotate Element” icon in the first row at the top of the screen,
and move the stub directly underneath the MTEE as shown below.

We will use LineCalc once more, this time to find the required length of the stub.
Launch LineCalc again (Tools/LineCalc), set the PC board parameters and frequency to
the same values used previously, set Z0 = 50 Ohm , but now the electrical length should
be E_Eff = 52.920 deg . Click on “Synthesize” to obtain results for W and L as shown:

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As indicated, the required MLOC values are W ! 3.914 mm and L ! 16.04 mm . Use
these values on your schematic.

The next element to add is a 50 Ω S parameter termination. We will have more

to say about this element and S parameters later, but for now, all that you need to know is
that we will be using our open-circuit stub matching network to match a load to this
50 Ω termination. Select “Simulation-S_Param” from the element menu and click on
the “TERM” icon (or type TERM in the element menu). Place the TERM on the
schematic, and make sure Z = 50 Ohm . Note that I have also moved the text box of the
termination out of the way (F5 and click on the TERM). The result is shown below.

Finally, add a resistor, an inductor, and two circuit “grounds” as shown below.

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The resistor and inductor are in the “Lumped-Components” menu, and the ground icon is
on the menu bar on the second row at the top of the screen. Adjust the resistance and
inductance to the values shown. To complete the circuit, wire the elements together:

To accomplish this, click on the “wire” icon (to the right of the ground icon, on the
second row at the top of the screen). Click on the schematic at the point where a wire
begins, click once more where the wire ends, and repeat this process until the entire
circuit is wired together as shown above.

Now it is time to specify the PC board parameters on the schematic. These are
known as the “microstrip substrate” parameters. Go back to the TLines-Microstrip menu
and choose the “MSUB” item. Place it on the schematic, and alter the values to match
those used in our LineCalc calculations. The result is shown below.

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 The circuit is now ready to simulate. The only thing missing is specification of
what type of simulation is to be performed. This is done by going to the “Simulation-
S_Param” menu and choosing the “S P” item, or typing “S-Param” into the menu box.
Place the element on the schematic, and alter the Start, Stop, and Step frequencies to
match the figure below.

Now simulate the circuit by clicking on the “Simulate” icon; in the second row at
the top that looks like a gear. The resultant screen looks like:

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Make a rectangular plot of results: click on the rectangular graph symbol at left to get a
red box and click on the window to bring up the dialog box:

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Choose S(1,1) as shown and click “>>Add>>” to get:

Specify Magnitude and click “OK” to get the plot shown. At the top of the screen click
on “Marker,” specify “New,” and click on the red trace near 2.0 GHz to get a display as
shown:

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Move the text box and change the value of “freq” to 2.0GHz so the display appears as:

Now we will optimize the circuit to obtain a minimum value for the magnitude of
S(1,1), S11 , at 2.0 GHz . We accomplish this by “tuning” the lengths of the two
transmission line sections. Such fine adjustments are easy to accomplish using ADS. To
“tune” the length of the series transmission line section, click the “tune” icon at the top of
the screen (that looks like a tuning fork). The following screen appears:

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Click on the plot display window to bring it to the front, and add a Smith chart display
with S(1,1) and a marker at 2GHz as shown.

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Adjust the length of TL1 as follows: click on L = 4.8 mm to bring up the slider box
shown.

Use the up and down arrows until the minimum of the S11 curve occurs at 2 GHz . You
can fine adjust by decreasing the step size to a small value such as 0.01.

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Now tune the length of the shunt open circuit stub as follows: click on L = 16.04 mm to
bring up the double slider box shown:

Simultaneously adjust TL1 and TL2 in small step sizes to achieve a minimum magnitude
for S11:

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 To finish up, click on “Update Schematic” to apply these new line lengths to the
circuit. The resultant circuit schematic looks like:

As a final step in our design, we use the ADS software to generate a PCB layout
of the microstrip transmission line portion of our circuit. This is accomplished by
choosing Layout>Generate/Update Layout. The resultant layout is shown below. This is
the “top view” of the microstrip circuit that we have designed. The layout data is also
written to a file in industry standard form for automated PCB milling machines.

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 This completes the ADS tutorial exercise. Note that we have barely “scratched
the surface” of the capabilities of ADS for RF design. It is worth noting that the hand-
tuning process that we have used to optimize our design can itself be automated with
ADS. Later in the semester we will see how design goals, such as obtaining a matched
input impedance, may be specified in ADS, and how the software can automatically
iterate, systematically altering component values, until the design goal is achieved.

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