CST Studio Suite

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CST Studio Suite

CST Studio Suite? is a high-performance 3D EM analysis software package for designing, analyzing and optimizing electromagnetic (EM) components and systems.

Electromagnetic field solvers for applications across the EM spectrum are contained within a single user interface in CST Studio Suite. The solvers can be coupled to perform hybrid simulations, giving engineers the flexibility to analyze whole systems made up of multiple components in an efficient and straightforward way. Co-design with other SIMULIA products allows EM simulation to be integrated into the design flow and drives the development process from the earliest stages.

Common subjects of EM analysis include the performance, efficiency and installed performance of antennas and filters, electromagnetic compatibility and interference (EMC/EMI), exposure of the human body to fields, electro-mechanical effects in motors and generators, and thermal effects in high-power devices.

CST Studio Suite is used in leading technology and engineering companies around the world and offers considerable product to market advantages, facilitating shorter development cycles and reduced costs. Simulation allows the use of virtual prototyping by industry leaders, which means that device performance can be optimized, potential compliance issues can be identified and mitigated early in the design process, the number of physical prototypes required can be reduced, and the risk of test failures and recalls minimized.

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CST Studio Suite benefits from an integrated design environment which gives access to the entire range of solver technology. System assembly and modeling facilitates multi-physics and co-simulation as well as the management of entire electromagnetic systems.

To learn more about the licensing options for CST Studio Suite, please refer to our Terms & Conditions.

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Technical Documents

Hardware Recommendation

Technical Specifications

Optimization

Import/Export

System Assembly Modeling

User Interface

Antenna Magus

Antenna Magus is a software tool to help accelerate the antenna design and modeling process. It increases efficiency by helping the engineer to make a more informed choice of antenna element, providing a good starting design. Validated antenna models can be exported to CST Studio Suite from a huge antenna database of over 330 antennas, which means that the engineer can get to the customization phase of an antenna design quickly and reliably.

Fest3D

Fest3D is a software tool capable of analyzing complex passive microwave components based on waveguide and coaxial cavity technology in very short computational times with high accuracy. This suite offers all the capabilities needed for the design of passive components such as optimization and tolerance analysis. Moreover, Fest3D advanced synthesis tools allow designing bandpass, dual-mode and lowpass filters from user specifications.

Idem

Idem is a user friendly tool for the generation of macromodels of linear lumped multi-port structures (e.g., via fields, connectors, packages, discontinuities, etc.), known from their input-output port responses. The raw characterization of the structure can come from measurement or simulation, either in frequency domain or in time domain. A suite of advanced and well conditioned rational fitting modules grants applicability to virtually any kind of characterization. The resulting models are cast in common SPICE formats for the system-level simulations required in your design flow. Thus, Idem enables SPICE processing for any kind of linear structure, component, interconnect, package, whatever your native characterization and application area.

Spark3D

Spark3D is a unique simulation tool for determining the RF breakdown power level in a wide variety of passive devices, including those based on cavities, waveguides, microstrip and antennas. Field results from CST Studio Suite® simulations can be imported directly into Spark3D to analyze vacuum breakdown (multipactor) and gas discharge. From this, Spark3D calculates the maximum power that the device can handle without causing discharge effects.

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SAM

Electromagnetic systems modeling

With System Assembly and Modeling (SAM), CST Studio Suite® provides an environment that simplifies the management of simulation projects, allowing the intuitive construction of electromagnetic systems and straightforward management of complex simulation flows using

The SAM framework can be used for analyzing and optimizing an entire device that consists of multiple components whose interaction needs to be taken into account. Through SAM, currents and fields can be transferred from one simulation project to another, even using different solver technologies, for system-level analysis.

 

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SOLVERS

Electromagnetic simulation solvers

CST Studio Suite® gives customers access to multiple electromagnetic (EM) simulation solvers which use methods such as the finite element method.

the finite integration technique (FIT), and the transmission line matrix method (TLM). These represent the most powerful general purpose solvers for high frequency simulation tasks. Additional solvers for specialist applications such as electrically large or highly resonant structures complement the general purpose solvers. Alongside these are simulation methods for low frequency, charged particle, electronics, and multiphysics problems.

 

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OPTIMIZATION

Automatic Optimization

CST Studio Suite® offers automatic optimization routines for electromagnetic systems and devices. This allows users to check how the behavior of a device is affected as its properties change, fit material properties to measured data, and find the optimum design parameters to achieve a given effect or fulfill a certain goal.

CST Studio Suite contains several optimization algorithms, both local and global, each suited to different situations. Local optimizers Global optimizers on the other hand, typically require more calculations, but they search the entire problem space.

For very complex systems, or problems with large numbers of variables, high-performance computing techniques are available to speed up simulation and optimization. The performance of global optimizers in particular can be greatly improved with the use of distributed computing.

RECOMMENDED HARDWARE

Recommended Hardware

EM simulations can be classified as high performance computing tasks. This means that computers used for CST Studio Suite® must meet high requirements in terms of CPU, RAM, and graphical specifications in order to achieve optimal performance. Sufficient power supply and cooling must also be ensured for the workstation or server. We strongly recommend buying a complete package from a brand-name manufacturer, e.g. DELL, HP, or IBM, and that the chosen hardware meets the following requirements.

We also recommend 8-10 cores per CPU for a general-purpose simulation workstation. It is in general advisable to have a high processor base frequency rather than a large amount of cores. The performance scaling as a function of number of cores depends on the used solver technology, the simulation model, and other factors.

A single processor system with a high base clock frequency may also deliver sufficient simulation performance for many applications. We recommend the Intel Xeon W processors for such lower end workstations. The above advice is also valid for such configurations.

IMPORT-EXPORT

Data Exchange Options

The excellent workflow integration available within CST Studio Suite® provides reliable data exchange options which are a useful tool for reducing the design engineer’s workload.

CST Studio Suite is renowned for its superb CAD-data import capabilities and the sophisticated healing mechanisms which recover the integrity of flawed or non-compliant data. The latter aspect is particularly vital as the presence of one corrupted element can prevent the usage of the whole part.

With CST Studio Suite, models from SOLIDWORKS and PTC Creo  (Pro/E) can be imported in fully parameterized format. The bidirectional link between CAD and simulation allows design changes to be instantly reflected in the simulation model, and means that the results of optimizations and parametric design studies can be imported back directly into the master model. This improves workflow integration and reduces the time and effort needed to optimize a design.

USER INTERFACE

Electromagnetic design environment

The CST Studio Suite® design environment is common across all the modules. Comprising a 3D interactive modeling tool and a schematic layout tool, the electromagnetic (EM) design environment combines a pre-processor for the solvers, post-processing tools tailored to industry needs, and an intuitive user interface for model construction and solver set-up.

The ribbon-based interface uses tabs to group all the tools and options needed to set up, carry out and analyze a simulation, according to their position in the workflow. Contextual tabs mean that the most relevant options for the task are always just a click away. The Ribbon, alongside with the Project Wizard and the QuickStart Guide, provides guidance to new users and offers access to a wide range of features.

The 3D interactive modeling tool at the heart of the interface uses the ACIS 3D CAD kernel. This powerful tool allows models to be constructed within CST Studio Suite and edited parametrically with a simple WYSIWYG approach.