How to use Si6000
Quick start guide
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Application Note 133 How to use Si6000 |
| Printer Friendly Version |
| Controlled
impedance traces are widely used and often designs need modifying to
maximise yields or overcome a shortage of a particular laminate
dimension. This note will help you start using the Si6000 Field
Solving Impedance Design System to achieve maximum controlled
impedance yields. Print this note and use as a guide when you first launch the Si6000 Hint: If you are running Excel 2000 you may first like to check point 7. |
| 1. How do I use
the Si6000? The Si6000 comprises Polar's powerful field solving engines which are accessed through Microsoft Excel as a flexible and convenient user interface. At installation both the field solvers and a sample Excel interface are installed on your PC. |
| 2. Which
versions of Excel are compatible? Excel 97 and Excel 2000 are both supported.. |
| 4. Do I need to
know how to use Excel? Ideally a basic knowledge of spreadsheet manipulation and charting will help you get the best from Si6000; if you are not familiar with Excel the help below should get you off to a flying start... |
| 5. The main page
shows a number of structures — what do I do now? Simply click on the structure you are interested in (the evaluation copy allows unlimited field solving on Surface Microstrip) This will take you to a sheet which has a table, picture of the structure and an empty graph. The table is an example sheet to show how height variation will alter the trace impedance. Select the top number in the Zo column and move the cursor over the bottom right of the square until the cursor turns into a black cross (the Fill Handle), now drag this down three or 4 rows to copy the formula down then click the calculator icon at the top of the screen. The Si6000 will field solve and graph your results. |
| 4. What does the
light bulb icon do? This takes you to perhaps the most important part of the Si6000 — the Goal Seeker. There is a goal seek sheet for every structure. Simply enter your fixed dimensions and press the goal seek button then choose the parameter you wish to enter add in the impedance you need to design and press calculate. The Si6000 does the rest for you. |
| 5.
My Si6000A appears to freeze or runs very slowly The numeric analysis under the Si6000 requires a high performance PC. In fact, it has only been possible to develop field solvers that run in a reasonable time on a PC with systems that have recently come on the market. You should have reasonable performance provided you have at least 128Mb of memory and 450MHz or faster Pentium PC. |
| 6. Can I build
my own spreadsheet? Once you have opened the Si6000.xls the field solvers are available to other spreadsheets to allow you to build your own excel application. You find the functions using the paste function button ( ¦x ), select User Defined and select the appropriate function from the list, e.g. = polarsurfacemicrostrip(h, w,....) |
| 7. Excel 2000 has an
additional option on the Macro menu called Security.
Settings available are high, medium and low. This setting seems to be an Excel setting rather than being tied to a spreadsheet. To set this correctly the following procedure should be used. a. Start Excel in the
normal way without using a shortcut that loads a workbook (do not use
the Si6000 shortcut) You can't seem to change the Macro Security once a spreadsheet with Macros is loaded. It is necessary to change this setting after starting Excel on its own without any files loaded.
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| 8. Help, I am
still having difficulty...
Ken Taylor (ken.taylor@polarinstruments.com) is Si6000 product manager. Ken and his team will be delighted to assist you. |
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