Advanced Design System
by Michael Ellis, All Rights Reserved

Click here for application notes and tutorials on ADS from Agilent

This page is a concise tutorial of HP's ADS software using a 3 transistor amplifier as an example. The amplifier is to have a gain of 25 to 25.5 dB over 5-210 MHz for use as a cable TV reverse amplifier. The schematic, captured with ADS, is shown below. The MRF581A can be selected from the Component Library under RF Transistor Library/Packaged BJTs. The input and output nodes are named under Component/Name Node. The input source is selected using Sources-Freq Domain/P_nHarm. The output termination is selected under the menu item Simulation-S_Param/Term.

Setup parameters for optimization are given below, along with the necessary simulation definitions for spectral analysis (harmonic balance), time domain waveforms (transient), dc annotation (dc), and s-parameter (s parameters) analysis. A component is selected for optimization by selecting the component, then selecting Optimization/Statistics Setup. Status should be "Enabled", with type "Continuous" and Format "min/max". Minimum and maximum values can be specified. Notice that R11, R13, R15, and L5 have been set up for optimization.

After optimization, select Simulate/Update Optimization Values. The DC bias voltages can be displayed by selecting Simulate/Annotate DC Solution. On some PCs, optimization needs to be disabled after the Simulate/Update Optimization Values, and the circuit resimulated before the dataset parameters (s-parameters, harmonic balance, etc.) can be displayed. Sample ADS output screens are shown below, including harmonic distortion components.

Download this three transistor ADS design file.

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