This blog demonstrates a coil co-simulation workflow using HFSS and Circuit. It walks through the process of exporting a coil layout from HFSS 3D Layout to HFSS while preserving the correct stackup shape, setting up the coil simulation in HFSS, and linking the model to Circuit to add tuning capacitors.
1. Exporting the Coil Layout from HFSS 3D Layout
We begin with a coil layout imported into HFSS 3D Layout, where the PCB has a circular outline with a rectangular extension.
By default, when exporting the layout to HFSS, the dielectric stackup becomes rectangular and does not follow the original board shape. To preserve the circular outline of the stackup during export, go to HFSS > Extents, and under Dielectric Extents, change the setting from Bounding Box to Conformal.
Note that what gets exported from HFSS 3D Layout is not the actual geometry, but what HFSS sees as the mesh based on the solution setup settings. In this case, the settings were adjusted as shown below to ensure the exported model accurately reflects the original layout geometry.
Below is the model as it appears in HFSS after export.
2. Setting Up the Simulation in HFSS 3D
In HFSS 3D, the radiation boundary is already assigned. A circuit port is added to excite the model, and the solution setup is configured for 10 MHz with an interpolating frequency sweep from 1 MHz to 200 MHz. The coil inductance and self-resonance are plotted below.
3. Linking the Coil Model to Circuit
After linking the HFSS model to Circuit, capacitors are added, parameterized, and tuned to achieve a return loss better than –21 dB.
The video below walks through these steps in detail, and the model shown is available in the downloadable resources.
Downloadable Resources
Coil Model Setup
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