External simulation tools

KQCircuits supports exports to following external simulation tools:

Creating simulation object

Simulation export begins by creating an instance of Simulation class. The simulation object includes following information:

  • name (defines export filenames)

  • geometry for the simulation

  • port locations and types

Geometry from Klayout GUI

When you have an active project open, import the following and get the top cell:

from kqcircuits.klayout_view import KLayoutView
from kqcircuits.simulations.simulation import Simulation

top_cell = KLayoutView.get_active_cell()

Create an instance of Simulation:

simulation = Simulation.from_cell(top_cell, name='Dev', margin=100)

The simulation object is needed for Ansys export and Sonnet export (more details in following sections). Alternatively, run following macros in Klayout:

Geometry from KQCircuits library

Define the geometry and ports in KQCircuits by inheriting Simulation class. Following creates waveguide crossing the domain box:

from kqcircuits.simulations.simulation import Simulation
from kqcircuits.pya_resolver import pya
import sys
import logging
from kqcircuits.util.export_helper import get_active_or_new_layout

class WaveguideSimulation(Simulation):
    def build(self):
        self.produce_waveguide_to_port(pya.DPoint(self.box.left, self.box.center().y),
                                       pya.DPoint(self.box.right, self.box.center().y),
                                       1, 'right', use_internal_ports=False)

Get layout for Simulation object:

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.WARN, stream=sys.stdout)
layout = get_active_or_new_layout()

Create an instance of Simulation:

simulation = WaveguideSimulation(layout, name='Dev', box=pya.DBox(pya.DPoint(0, 0), pya.DPoint(500, 500)))

Simulation class and it’s subclasses are located in folder kqcircuits/simulations/.

Ansys export

Once the simulation object is created, call function export_ansys_json to export the geometry as GDSII file and meta-data in json format. Parameter ansys_tool determines whether to use HFSS (‘hfss’) or Q3D Extractor (‘q3d’):

from kqcircuits.simulations.export.ansys.ansys_export import export_ansys_json, copy_ansys_scripts_to_directory, export_ansys_bat, export_ansys
path = "C:\\Your\\Path\\Here\\"
json = export_ansys_json(simulation, path, ansys_tool='hfss')

Performing simulations requires Ansys-scripts, which are located at scripts/simulations/ansys/. Usually, it’s convenient to copy this folder to the export path by calling copy_ansys_scripts_to_directory:

copy_ansys_scripts_to_directory(path)

You can create a Windows batch file for running multiple simulations in a row by calling function export_ansys_bat. The first argument is a list of exported json filenames:

bat = export_ansys_bat([json], path)

Alternatively, you can call export_ansys to cover last three steps. This exports multiple simulations that are stored in a list, copies the Ansys-scripts into the folder, and creates the Windows batch file:

bat = export_ansys([simulation], path, ansys_tool='hfss')

Ansys scripts

The folder scripts/simulations/ansys/ contains several IronPython scripts to run simulations in Ansys Electronics Desktop. Scripts support HFSS and Q3D Extractor frameworks.

The scripts are developed and tested with Ansys Electronic Desktop 2021 R1 on Windows x64.

The primary use case is to estimate capacitive couplings between different elements in the layout, where each element of interest has a port in the simulation. The capacitances are represented as a matrix, where the Cij is the capacitance between two ports i and j, and Cii is the capacitance between port i and ground.

Main scripts:

  • import_simulation_geometry.py

    Argument: path to json file exported by export_ansys_json.

    Creates a new project, imports the geometry, defines ports/nets and materials, and sets up the analysis setup.

  • create_capacitive_pi_model.py

    No argument.

    Adds solution variables and reports for a PI model between all ports/nets in the current design.

    The variables yy_i_j give the scalar admittance between port i and j, or the admittance from port i to ground if i==j. The yy-variables are created only in HFSS.

    Similarly, the variables C_i_j give the capacitance between ports and from ports to ground, assuming a purely capacitive model. This assumption is valid as long as the resulting C_i_j are constant over frequency.

  • export_solution_data.py

    No argument.

    Exports data from the solutions. projectname_CMatrix.txt contains the elements C_i_j in fF (at 1 GHz in HFSS). projectname_results.json contains all C_i_j and yy_i_j elements for all frequencies in the solution. In case of HFSS, projectname_SMatrix.s2p contains the S-parameters.

  • import_and_simulate.py

    Argument: path to json file exported by export_ansys_json.

    Performs the full simulation sequence including running the three other scripts, saving the project, and running the simulation.

Additional scripts for use cases other than capacitive coupling exist. These are enabled in import_and_simulate.py with a list of strings as parameters to export_ansys, e.g., to enable exporting Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and non-de-embedded Touchstone (.sNp) files:

export_ansys(..., export_processing=['tdr', 'snp_no_deembed'])

The optional scripts are listed below.

Optional scripts:

  • export_snp_no_deembed.py

    No argument.

    Disables de-embedding and exports the \(S\)-matrix network data to a Touchstone (.sNp) file.

    Works only in HFSS.

  • export_tdr.py

    No argument.

    Creates a Time Domain Reflectometry report using TDRZt(port) for all ports and exports the data to a .csv.

    Works only in HFSS.

Sonnet export

Once the simulation object is created, call function export_sonnet_son to export simulation into .son file:

from kqcircuits.simulations.export.sonnet.sonnet_export import export_sonnet_son, export_sonnet
path = "C:\\Your\\Path\\Here\\"
son = export_sonnet_son(simulation, path)

Multiple simulations can be exported by calling export_sonnet. The function takes list of simulations as it’s first parameter:

sons = export_sonnet([simulation], path)

Gmsh/Elmer export

Usage of Gmsh and Elmer export is similar to Ansys export. The simulation object can be used with function export_elmer to export all necessary files to produce Gmsh/Elmer simulations.

There is an example at klayout_package/python/scripts/simulations/waveguides_sim_compare.py, which creates a simulation folder with simulation scripts. The folder is created to $TMP (usually kqcircuits/tmp). The contents of the folder is something like:

waveguides_sim_elmer
├── COMMIT_REFERENCE
├── scripts
│   ├── elmer_helpers.py
│   ├── gmsh_helpers.py
│   └── run.py
├── sif
│   ├── CapacitanceMatrix.sif
│   └── electric_potential.pvsm
├── simulation.oas
├── simulation.sh
├── waveguides_n_guides_1.gds
├── waveguides_n_guides_1.json
├── waveguides_n_guides_1.sh
├── waveguides_n_guides_2.gds
├── waveguides_n_guides_2.json
└── waveguides_n_guides_2.sh

script folder contains scripts that are used for preparing the simulations.

sif contains the Solver Input Files (SIF) for Elmer (scripts in scripts -folder are used to build the SIF files for each simulation).

waveguides_n_guides_1.sh, waveguides_n_guides_2.sh, … are the shell scripts for running each simulation. Each script executes Gmsh (mesh creation), computes the FEM model using Elmer (computes the capacitance matrix), and visualizes the results using Paraview.

simulation.sh is a shell script for running all simulations at once. The simulations are executed by running the .sh file in the output folder (here waveguides_sim_elmer).

Please note that running the example requires the installation of

Gmsh api suffices if one needs to generate the mesh only.