Ansoft HFSS Tutorial: Stripline

Dr. Ryan S. Adams

March 12, 2008

This tutorial introduces the interface of Ansoft’s HFSS, and walks the student through an
example problem of creating, simulating and evaluating the response of a standard stripline
structure.

1 Starting HFSS
At UNCC, the HFSS application resides on a Linux based server by the name of “hertz”
which is part of the Reconfigurable Computing System (rcs). The best way to access this
server is through the Mosaic system.

1.1 Logging Into Mosiac Linux Server

When you are logged in to one of the Mosaic windows computers, you first need to log in to
Exceed Linux. This is done by selecting the start menu => All Programs => MOSAIC XP
=> Unix Connectivity => Exceed Linux, as shown in Figure 1.1. This should bring you to
a screen that looks something like Figure 1.1. In the box, lxs-sm1 and lxs-sm2 are identical
linux servers that are maintained by Mosaic. Highlight whichever one you prefer and click
OK. You should then be presented with a login screen for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5; use
your normal Mosaic login ID and password to login to the linux server.

1.2 Logging into the Reconfigurable Computing System Network

At this stage, you should be looking at a linux desktop (probably with a red background). To
log in to the RCS network, start from a command prompt. To do this, right click anywhere
on the desktop and click “Open Terminal” in the pop–down menu that appears. In the
terminal that appears perform the following commands:

1. type ssh -C -Y rcs you should now be prompted to log into the rcs system –
do not use your mosaic password, use your rcs password instead.

2. type ssh -C -Y hertz you should now be prompted to log into hertz – use the
same password that you used to log into the rcs network.

3. type hfss and wait a few moments for the gui to appear.

1
Figure 1: Path in Windows Mosaic to access Exceed Linux servers.

Figure 2: Selecting a Linux server.

Note: The first time you log into hfss, it will prompt you for certain file locations. Use
the defaults and follow the prompts until the gui appears. You may find yourself back at a
command prompt. If this happens, just retype hfss and the gui should come up.

2 The HFSS Interface

The main HFSS interface is shown in Figure 2, which illustrates the main components of the
gui. They are summarized as follows:

• 3D Modeler Window This is the area where you create the model geometry. This
window consists of the model view area (or grid) and the history tree as shown in
Figure 2. The history tree documents the actions that have been taken in the model
view area, and provides an alternative way to select objects in the model view area.

• Project Manager with Project Tree The project manager window displays details
about all open HFSS projects. Each project ultimately includes a geometric model, its
boundary conditions and material assignments, and field solution and post processing
information. An expanded view of the project manager is shown in Figure 2

• Properties Window The properties window consists of two tabs. The command tab
displays information about an action selected in the history tree that was performed
to either create an object or modify an object. The attribute tab displays information
about the material and display properties of a selected object.

• Progress Window This window is used when a simulation is running to monitor the
solution’s progress.

• Message Manager This window displays messages associated with a project’s devel-
opment (such as error messages about the design’s setup)

3 Setting up HFSS
Before you can use HFSS for the first time, there are a couple of items that need to be
configured for efficient and accurate operation.

1. On the Tools menu, select Options => General Options ..., click the Default Units tab
and ensure that Length is set to mm. Click OK.

2. On the Tools menu, select Options => HFSS Options..., ensure the Include ferrite
materials check box is checked. Click the Solver tab, set the number of Processors to
4, Desired RAM Limit (MB) to 6000 and the Maximum RAM Limit (MB) to 8000.
Click OK.

You should now be ready to use HFSS.

 Project
Manager
with
Project 3D Modeler
Tree Window

Property
Window

Message Progress
Manager Window

Figure 3: Main screen of HFSS.

4 An Example: A Simple Stripline Circuit

To begin to appreciate the functionality of this simulation tool, we will create and simulate
a simple stripline transmission line. Before we can begin to work through the simulation, we
need to design the circuit on paper. We wish to design a 50 Ω stripline transmission line that
is 10 cm long using teflon (²r = 2.08, tan δ = 0.0004). The overall material thickness we’ll
√
choose to be 1 cm. Therefore, eprZ◦ = 72.11 < 120 and the following equation should be
used to compute the trace width of this transmission line:
W 30π
=√ − 0.441. (1)
b ² r Z◦

With our choice of material thickness, W = 0.866 cm.

Now that we have the geometry completely defined, we are ready to open HFSS and
build the model. We’ll do this in the 3D modeler window.

4.1 Creating the Dielectric

The first component of the geometry that we’ll draw is the dielectric. This is a solid rectangle
of teflon, which can be drawn by selecting Draw => box in the file menu. To make the box
the correct size, you can either

1. input the x, y, z coordinates of each component of the box into the appropriate fields
at the bottom of the 3D model window, or
 History Model
Tree View
Area

Figure 4: 3D Modeler Window, which consists of the model view area and the history tree.

2. click randomly in the 3D model window three times to create a box and edit the size
in the properties box. To do this, click the command tab in the properties box and
input the correct start position, and xsize, ysize and zsize for our box.

For our stripline circuit, we want to box to be 200mm in the x-direction, 40mm in the
y-direction and 10mm in the z-direction. The box should start at the location (-100mm,
-20mm, -5mm) with XSize = 200mm, YSize = 40mm and ZSize = 10mm. The material
parameters are set by clicking on the attribute tab in the properties window. Click on the
block that says Vacuum and a window should open titled “Select Definition.” Highlight
Teflon in the materials list and click OK. If you wish to change the color or transparency of
the box you may also do so in the attribute tab.
At this point, the box should cover the entire screen. To view the entire box, click the
button with a picture of a magnifying glass with a white square in the middle. This button
“fits all the contents in the view.” All that remains is to create the center trace of the
stripline.

4.2 Creating the Center Trace

We will create the center trace as an infinitesimally thin strip. To do this, we select Draw
=> rectangle in the file menu. We can define the size and location of the rectangle in the
same manner as for the dielectric above. Our strip width is 8.66mm, and 1000mm long, so
the position is (-100,-8.66/2,0) and XSize = 200mm, YSize = 8.66mm. Since the trace has
no thickness, we do not apply any material attributes to it. We will make it into a conductor
using the boundary conditions.
Figure 5: Project Manager window illustrating the boundery conditions, excitation, etc. of
the current model.

4.3 Boundary Conditions

The following boundary conditions must be applied to this device:

• Perfect E boundary on the top of the dielectric (simulates a metal layer)

• Perfect E boundary on the bottom of the dielectric (simulates a metal layer)

• Perfect E boundary on the trace (simulates a metal layer)

• Radiation boundary on the long sides of the dielectric (simulates the material extending
to infinity in that direction)

To apply these boundary conditions, right click in the 3D modeler window and click “Select
Faces”. Now, select the top face, bottom face and the strip using the control key. Note: to
select faces beneath what you can see, click the face you want and press the “b” key until the
desired face is selected. With these three items selected, right click in the “white–space” of
the 3D modeler window and highlight “Assign Boundary,” and click “Perfect E...”. Click OK.
Next, select the long sides of the dielectric using the control key. Right click in the white–
space of the 3D modeler window and highlight “Assign Boundary,” and click “Radiation...”
Click OK.
To check that the boundaries are created correctly, expand the “Boundaries” item in the
Project Tree, and you should see “PerfE1” and “Rad1” or similar. Highlight PerfE1, and
you should see hash marks indicating which regions of the model apply to this boundary.
Highlight Rad1 to see the same information for the radiation boundary.
4.4 Excitations
We will create a “Waveport” excitation at each end of the circuit. To do so, we perform the
following steps:
1. Select the face of the nearest end of the circuit
2. right click in the 3D modeler window and select Assign Excitation => Wave Port.
3. Click Next
4. Under “Integration Line,” click the word None, and select New Line...
5. In the 3D modeler window, click the center of the bottom of the selected face (a triangle
will appear)
6. Click the center of the trace
7. Clck Next
8. Click Finish
The same steps should be performed to create a wave port at the other end of the circuit.

4.5 Analysis
Perform the following steps to set up the analysis options:
1. Right click on Analysis in the Project Tree, and select “Add Solution Setup”
2. Under the General tab:
(a) Set the solution frequency to 20 GHz
(b) Set the maximum number of passes to 30
(c) Set maximum Delta S to 0.01
3. Under the Options tab:
(a) Set the Maximum Refinement per pass to 20 %
(b) Set the Order of Basis Functions to Second Order
Perform the following steps to set up the frequency sweep:
1. Under the Analysis item in the Project Tree, right-click on Setup1
2. Select Add Frequency Sweep...
3. Set start frequency to 1 GHz
4. Set stop frequency to 20 GHz
5. Set step size to 0.25 GHz
6. Click OK
4.6 Final Checks and Running the Simulation
Select HFSS => Validation Check... to ensure the project is prepared for simulation (click
close).
Save the project by clicking on the save icon at the top of the screen.
Right-click setup1 under Analysis in the project tree, select Analyze to begin the sim-
ulation. At this point the progress window should show the progress of the simulation,
beginning with the mesh generation.

4.7 Simulation Results

To view the results of the simulation, perform the following steps:

1. Right click on the results item in the Project Tree

2. Click Create Modal Solution Data Report => Rectangular Plot

3. Under the trace tab, select the first S-Parameter that you wish to view and click New
Report

4. Add additional S-Parameters by highlighting them and clicking Add Trace

5. Click Close