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Would love to see more features supporting RF. Obviously the dream would be a 2D or 2.1D mesh/simulate built in, but would settle for less. An easy starting po
by mNovak 6y ago
Would love to see more features supporting RF. Obviously the dream would be a 2D or 2.1D mesh/simulate built in, but would settle for less.
An easy starting point is better import/export of layouts. Designing an antenna in my RF-specific CAD suite is great, but when I actually have to build the thing, all I get is DXFs. Converting DXF to gerbers is a mess in KiCAD. Same goes if I want to reverse the pipe and simulate my layout.
Staying in the OSS realm, QUCS (open source ADS equivalent) has RF circuit simulation, just needs some help implementing auto-layout. This would make it trivial to e.g. optimize a simple transmission line circuit, and have it fabbed. That'd be huge for opening up simple microwave circuits to the DIY/"hacker" community.
- amelius 6y agoOk but I think this really should be a separate application. Let's stick with the Unix philosophy and have many tools that do one task well.
- dkarp 6y agoAbsolutely! As long as those tools can communicate with each other à la unix pipes
- willis936 6y agoWhy limit with OS specific tools? Why not just communicate via markup files?
- dkarp 6y agoWho said anything about limiting to OS specific tools? I just referred to unix pipes as that is why the unix philosophy works. I wasn't suggesting unix pipes are used for this, there just needs to be a way for these tools to communicate if they're split.
- madengr 6y agoUgh, no. I have been using RF CAD since HP MDS. You’ll end up with a convoluted mess like ADS, where the EM package is now a separate application from the main package. I ditched it 20 years ago; good riddance. The Microwave Office guys knew this 25 years ago, which is why it’s so much better than ADS. It is all tightly integrated and object oriented.