July 12, 2006 Ossining, NY -- RSoft Design Group announced the upcoming release of Version 7.0 of its Passive Component Design Suite, which includes the products BeamPROP, FullWAVE, BandSOLVE, GratingMOD, DiffractMOD, FemSIM, and MOST. The new release includes advanced non-uniform mesh generation and incorporates significant speed and usability improvements, according to the company. These additions and upgrades allow the suite to address a wide range of emerging optoelectronic applications.
The new features in Version 7.0 include improved mesh generation, designed to provide more flexible CAD layout and greater simulation accuracy for all device design tools. This new mesh generation framework includes non-uniform mesh, which is enabled for the BeamPROP, FullWAVE, and FemSIM products. Non-uniform meshing is applicable to a wide array of applications, including high-index contrast structures, metallic structures, quantum well devices, and structures with small feature sizes. This is accomplished by using a finer mesh at material interfaces where electromagnetic fields tend to change rapidly and a coarser grid in bulk regions. Without this feature, the mesh would have to be uniform and the grid set to the smallest value needed within the simulation domain in order to get similar accuracy. By reducing the number of grid points, RSoft's FullWAVE, a FDTD based simulator, can be orders of magnitude faster when using a non-uniform mesh compared to the equivalent simulation with a uniform mesh.
Other products in the suite have been updated as well. FemSIM and DiffractMOD have received a speed boost from new simulation algorithms that enable similar accuracy to be obtained at significantly less computational expense when compared to previous versions. FullWAVE now has improved clustering capability as well as a new module, Q-Finder, for calculating cavity modes and Q factors. In addition the launch and analysis capabilities of DiffractMOD have been improved and expanded. All products, including GratingMOD, are now tightly integrated with MOST, RSoft's scanning and optimization tool.
Robert Scarmozzino, CEO of RSoft Design Group, states, "Non-uniform meshing is a powerful addition to the RSoft Passive Component Design Suite due to increasing needs of designers working with metallic structures and nanotechnology applications. With the other additions to Version 7.0, RSoft shows a continued investment in the emerging design needs of the optoelectronics industry."