RF Toolbox™ provides functions, objects, and apps for designing, modeling, analyzing, and visualizing networks of radio frequency (RF) components. The toolbox supports wireless communications, radar, and signal integrity applications.
RF Toolbox lets you build networks of RF components such as filters, transmission lines, matching networks, amplifiers, and mixers. Components can be specified using measurement data such as Touchstone files, network parameters, or physical properties. The toolbox provides functions for analyzing, manipulating, and visualizing RF data. You can analyze S-parameters; convert among S, Y, Z, T, and other network parameters; and visualize RF data using rectangular and polar plots and Smith® Charts. You can also de-embed, check, and enforce passivity, and compute group and phase delay.
The RF Budget Analyzer app lets you analyze transceiver chains in terms of noise, power, and nonlinearity and generate RF Blockset™ models for circuit envelope simulation. Using the rational function fitting method, you can model backplanes, interconnects, and linear components, and export them as Simulink® blocks, SPICE netlists, or Verilog®-A modules for time-domain simulation.
Get Started:
S-Parameter Analysis
Use functions to transform and manipulate S-parameter data. Import and export N-port Touchstone® files. Visualize S-parameters on cartesian, polar, or Smith charts. Measure VSWR, reflection coefficients, phase delay, and group delay.
Choose the appropriate format by converting among S, Y, Z, ABCD, h, g, and T network parameter formats. De-embed measured 2N-port S-parameter data by removing the effects of test fixtures and access structures. Transform single-ended measurements into differential or other mixed-mode formats. Convert and reorder single-ended N-port S-parameters to single-ended M-port S-parameters.
RF Network Design
Design RF filters and matching networks starting from high-level specifications. Build arbitrary networks using RF components such as lumped RLC elements and transmission lines characterized by physical properties.
Read and write industry-standard data file formats, such as N-port Touchstone. Cascade S-parameters and use S-parameter data to design RF networks.
RF Analysis
Perform frequency-domain analysis of RF networks to compute metrics such as VSWR, gain, and group delay. Calculate input and output reflection coefficients, stability factors, and noise figure for cascaded components.
Optimize the design of matching networks with local and global optimization algorithms.
RF Budget Analyzer App
Use the RF Budget Analyzer app to graphically build, or script in MATLAB®, a cascade of RF components. Analyze the budget of the cascade in terms of noise, power, gain, and nonlinearity.
Determine system-level specs of RF transceivers for wireless communications and radar systems. Compute the budget considering impedance mismatches instead of relying on custom spreadsheets and complex computations. Use harmonic balance analysis to compute the effects of non-linearity on gain and on second-order and third-order intercept points (IP2 and IP3). Inspect results numerically or graphically by plotting different metrics.
Generate Circuit Envelope RF Blockset Models
From the RF Budget Analyzer app, generate RF Blockset models and testbenches for multicarrier circuit envelope RF simulation.
Use the automatically generated model as a baseline for further design of the RF architecture and for simulating effects that cannot be accounted for analytically, including effects due to leakage, interferers, and antenna coupling.
Rational Fitting
Use rational fitting algorithms to extract an equivalent Laplace transfer function from frequency domain data, such as S-parameters.
Control the accuracy and the number of poles to manage complexity. Check and enforce passivity of the data and of the fitting. Extract equivalent poles and zeros. Use the resulting fitting for simulation in RF Blockset, or export it as an equivalent Spice netlist or Verilog-A module.
Signal Integrity
Use rational fitting to model linear frequency-dependent components, such as single-ended and differential high-speed transmission lines, or analog components, such as continuous time linear equalizers (CTLE).
Use model order reduction to achieve simpler models for a given accuracy (compared to inverse fast Fourier transform). Enforce zero phase on extrapolation to DC and avoid overfitting of noise. Guarantee the causality and passivity of the system model for time-domain simulation.
Use the channel model with SerDes Toolbox™; alternatively, export it as Simulink blocks, as an equivalent Spice netlist, or as Verilog-A modules for SerDes design.