System Overview

The RF-Chart module, as part of Slide-Rule, has been designed as a basic Graphical RF design package using the Smith Chart as the basic overlay.  It allows the Engineer or Student of Microwave engineering a quick and fast method of designing simple RF circuits up to and including complex circuits such as a multistage amplifier.  Because of the graphical nature of this design package, the Engineer can get an intuitive feel in the design stages because of the visual presentation of displayed data.  All plotted data that can be visualized on one’s monitor can also be output to a printer device as well. You can also write all plotted output as an extended metafile that can be imported into popular word processing programs such as Microsoft’s Word for Windows.  This feature makes for a powerful tool in itself when it comes time to publish an article.

·         Plot of basic Impedance Grid

·         Plot of basic Impedance Grid plus Admittance Grid

·         Input of Frequency for each grid

·         Input of Characteristic Impedance for each plot

·         Undo the last step or all steps.

·         Record a given design session for latter play back.

·         Output a given displayed window plot to the printer.

·         Save a given displayed window plot as a Metafile for insertion into a document.

·         Opening of multiple plot windows.

·         Interactive text insertion anywhere on the plot by using the mouse and keyboard.

·         Interactive plotting of arrows with text.

·         Interactive plotting of straight lines.

·         Interactive plotting of a particular VSWR circle by mouse positioning.

·         Interactive plotting of a particular Circuit Q contour by mouse positioning.

·         Interactive plotting of a particular Impedance Point by positioning of the mouse.

·         Interactive plotting of an Admittance Point by positioning of the mouse on a     particular Impedance Point.

·         Interactive plotting of the Conjugate Impedance Point by positioning of the mouse     on a particular Impedance Point.

·         Interactive computation and plotted display of an Impedance Point along a     lossless VSWR by mouse selection from the source or load impedance point     along with length of travel and dielectric constant.

·         Interactive impedance matching along a constant resistance or constant     conductance line along with a visual display of the current component value

·         Interactive micro-strip matching along a constant resistance (shunt stubs) or     constant VSWR circle (series strip) along with a visual display of the current     computed value of .

·         Plotting or locating an Impedance Point, an Admittance Point, or a Reflection     coefficient, either in Cartesian or Polar coordinates.

·         Plotting of a Radial line from the center of the chart out past the outer circle of     the displayed Smith Chart and through the point of interest as selected by the     position of the mouse cursor.

·         The plotting of the Stability Circles for Small Transistor Design.

·         The plotting of the Constant Gain Circles for Power Gain (Gp), Available Gain      (Gp), S11, or S22.

·         The plotting of Noise Circles for Small Transistor Design.

·         The plotting of the Conjugate Match Circle (1 + j) as a rotation towards the      Generator or Load as a fraction of Lambda.

·         Small Transistor Calculations and display from S-parameters including the Rollett     Stability Factor (K),  (DEL), Maximum Available Gain (MAG), Source and Load      reflection coefficients at MAG, Gs, Go, Gl, and Maximum Transducer Gain both      for the bilateral and unilateral cases.

·         Source Reflection calculation from S-parameters and the Load Reflection     coefficient.

·         Load Reflection calculation from S-parameters and the Source Reflection     coefficient.

·         Plotting of Constant input or output VSWR circles.

·         Calculation and storage of S-parameters from Y-parameters.

·         Micro-strip calculation (quasi-TEM) of width and length from Characteristic     Impedance, dielectric constant, substrate thickness, and fraction of wave-length.

·         Micro-strip calculation (quasi-TEM) of Characteristic Impedance from dielectric     constant, substrate thickness, and width of the micro-strip line.

·        Transducer power gain G_T, operating power gain G­_P and availabl power      gain G­_A  from S-parameters, and Source and Load Reflection coefficients      (GammaS  and GammaL).

·          Plotting of empirical data either on a Smith overlay or a simple polar plot.