MEFiSTo

ver. 3.1


Examples

Coaxial to microstrip transition, electric field vectors.


Coaxial to microstrip transition, electric field magnitude.


Horn antenna radiation pattern and electric field distribution.


Negative index material layer sandwiched between two normal material regions - imaging effect.
Click on the figure to start movie
What can you simulate in MEFiSTo?
What cannot be simulated in MEFiSTo
MICs and MMICs
PCBs and other planar structures
Waveguide devices
Antennas
Various transitions like coax to microstrip or CPW
Closed and open structures
Packaging
Realistic metallization thickness and resistivity effects, superconductors
Circuit (Spice) models of devices included in field simulations
Lossy and frequency dependent materials
Negative index materials
RF heating
Anisotropic and lossy materials SAR for cell-phones etc.
Signal integrity and EMC problems
Ultra Wide Band applications
Radar cross section, RCS


Intro

MEFiSTo (Multipurpose Electromagnetic Field Simulation Tool) is a Transmission Lines Method, or TLM, 3D time domain electromagnetic solver that is ideal analyzing complicated structures.
Amplifiers, high-speed transistors, other devices can be included as spice equivalent circuits in the electromagnetic simulations.
All the parameters can be expressed as variables and used in repeated, batch processes, optimizations, nonlinear problems, user defined sources, etc. MEFiSTo can be run from Matlab with various parameters inside an optimization procedure, and also can include Matlab functions in simulations instead of equivalent circuits.
MEFiSTo takes advantage of your hardware by fully using multiprocessor configurations or 64 bit processors.
Also for fast pre-design include a 2D version and tutorials on the mapping of microstrip and waveguide structures into 2D structures for quick results.

Unique features:
Time domain radiation pattern calculations.
Negative index materials (metamaterials) - MEFiSTo is the only commercially available tool that can include metamaterials in simulations.
Inclusion of equivalent circuits in EM simulations.
User can choose the shape of the signal and can simulate exactly the radiation resulting from actual digital pulses - for EMC.


Preprocessor

You can define 3D structures very easily in MEFiSTo. There are predefined shapes like rectangular boxes, circular and elliptical cylinders, and you can define arbitrary polygonal surfaces that can be extruded in the third dimension. Objects can be inserted totally or partially into other objects, creating various structures. All this can be done in the graphical interface or can be done in a text file that describes the structure.
All parameters, dimensions and material constants can be defined as variables.


Solver

There are three different solvers included. A 2D EM solver, a 3D EM solver and a thermal solver.

Postprocessor

MEFiSTo calculates and represents in 3D the electric and magnetic field distributions, plots the frequency dependence of the S parameters, frequency and time domain probe fields, radiation patterns, etc.

Coupled strip transition - differential signaling

Consider a simple example of transition from narrow differential trace to wider ones (like on a PCB from under an IC package to the rest of the PCB). The original signal is differential, opposite phases on the two lines, but due the different trace lengths, at the end the signals will not be completely out of phase. A differential to common mode conversion occurs.
The geometry:



The clearly (anti)symmetrical mode at the input and the distorted output (vertical component of the E field):




The propagation of the wave, showing how the signals, initially with opposite phases, become "skewed" :




3D visualization of the Ez field component:




Planar antenna simulation

Example of a Planar Slot Antenna, radiation patterns computed and measured (red points). Measurements by Sierra-Garcia and J.J. Laurin, Study of a CPW Inductively Coupled Slot Antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, vol. 47, pp. 58-64, Jan. 1999.







Recommended applications

Microwave and millimeter wave planar structures and waveguide devices
Packaging, PCBs
Signal integrity problems
EMC/EMI problems
Coax to waveguide, coax to pcb, vias, and other transitions
Dielectric resonators and guides
Antennas and scattering
RF heating and absorption
Coupled electromagnetic-circuit simulations
Resonator cavities


Pros:
Full 3D, full-wave simulation
Fast and accurate simulations
Easy to use
Price - as low as one fourth of the price of the leading EM CAD software.
Unique features: inclusion of equivalent circuits, RF heating, metamaterials.

Cons:
Cannot import geometries from other CAD software
Relatively small number of geometric entities and operations available
No automatic adaptive meshing


Free Version

MEFiSTo-3D Nova Version 1.0:
This latest 3D Electromagnetic Simulator, including electronic documentation and Virtual Electromagnetics Laboratory, is now available free of charge. MEFiSTo-3D Nova is capable of solving 3D time domain problems sufficiently large for teaching and study.
Its main limitation is the maximum memory allowance of 16 MB (up to ~160000 cells). While some of the features of MEFiSTo-3D Pro are not available in MEFiSTo-3D Nova, such as the shunt, series and SRC TLM engines as well as the SPICE and MATLAB links, most items in the documentation apply to the free version.
Documentation is presently being updated, and for the time being, the install image contains the documentation for MEFiSTo-3D Pro. The number of time steps is not restricted, and all file and data import and export operations are enabled. The geometric modeler is fully parameterized and allows external control of data import and export through several batch mode commands. 2D and 3D metamaterial modeling capability is enabled as well.
No user support is provided for the free version.
Register and download MEFiSTo-3D Nova (7.5 Mb) for free. --->

Trial

Test drive MEFiSTo!
MEFiSTo-3D Pro Version 4.0:
We provide a demo software package that allows you to explore the features of MEFiSTo-3D Pro. These include the SPICE and MATLAB links that allow embedding of lumped circuit and device models into the 3D field environment. The number of time steps is limited to 1000 in this demo, and 1000 additional steps can be executed manually.
You need authorization to access this demo. Please request access information before attempting to download.
Unless you want to test the SPICE and MATLAB links, MEFiSTo-3D Nova is a perfect demo for MEFiSTo-3D Pro, and we recommend that you consider downloading MEFiSTo-3D Nova as an alternative to the MEFiSTo-3D Pro Demo. Please fill-in the following request form and we will send you a one month trial version of MEFiSTo 3D Pro Demo. --->


MEFiSTo-3D Academica

An Educator's Dream Come True
MEFiSTo-3D Academica can handle medium-sized problems with its 64 MB memory allocation (up to ~ 640000 cells). It is a better version of Nova, with 4 times the memory limit. The budget-saving license fee includes one year of maintenance and user support.

Contact us for pricing on the Pro or Academica versions, or for more information: info@emintegrity.com

EMIntegrity© 2004-2005. All rights Reserved