Keysight adds new analysis tool to PathWave Advanced Design System solution

SANTA ROSA, CA—Keysight Technologies has announced Power Electronics Professional (PEPro) software, a new add-on to PathWave Advanced Design System (ADS)that enables designers to visualize effects of switched-mode power supply (SMPS) designs without the need to build and test time-consuming prototypes.

Demand for SMPS is driven by the need for greater efficiency, increased power density, and lower cost. New semiconducting materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) will power future applications due to their high performance and efficiency. However, high-performance materials result in new challenges, as the layout of a printed circuit board (PCB) becomes more difficult. Post-layout analysis of a “virtual prototype” is ideal for managing this challenge, but until now it required expertise with a complicated, general-purpose electromagnetic (EM) field solver.

Keysight’s PEPro software makes post-layout analysis as easy as pre-layout analysis. It includes automatic setup that previously required an expert. In addition, it offers pre-built analyses of effects such as voltage spiking and electromagnetic interference (EMI).

“Keysight recognizes that next-generation wide band-gap semiconductors represent a new paradigm for power electronics designers,” said Dr. Andrew Lemmon, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alabama. “As such, new tools are needed to help designers take full advantage of this technology by providing insight into subtle design trade-offs that can have major impact on application performance. These enhancements to Keysight’s ADS represent an important step towards equipping power electronics designers to be in command of these important details.”

“Keysight’s ADS has always been my favorite post layout tool,” said Steve Sandler, managing director of Picotest. “Keysight’s PEPro enables power electronics designers to take another step toward end-to-end simulation and the complete power ecosystem.”

“Keysight understands that customers value application-specific post-layout analysis tools over more general-purpose ones,” said Colin Warwick, product manager for power electronics EDA tools at Keysight. “I’m pleased that we can add PEPro to the family. It’s tailor-made for solving the challenges that SMPS designers face in this high switching speed era.”

Pre-production PEPro is available to select customers under the Early Access program for ADS. The production version will be available on July 1.

PEPro is on display at Keysight’s booth #111 at the IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference 2019 (APEC 2019) at the Anaheim Convention Center, CA, March 18-20.