Hierarchical Electromagnetics
EmCAD – Cloud-native EM Simulator for Circuit-Level Modeling
Distinctive Aspects of EmCAD
EmCAD introduces a novel approach to full-wave electromagnetic simulation by producing equivalent circuit models instead of just scattering matrices or field plots. This enables seamless integration with traditional circuit simulation workflows — especially in the time domain.
Hierarchical Decomposition
Large or complex structures are split into smaller subdomains which are modeled independently and assembled into a global circuit model through multimodal interfaces.
This method preserves simulation accuracy while enabling massive parallelization and efficient reuse of subdomain models.
Model Order Reduction
Each local model is initially built with a high number of internal elements (up to 100,000), then compressed using a custom model order reduction technique. This reduces circuit size by several orders of magnitude — without sacrificing accuracy.
Typical models are compact enough to be directly used in SPICE-based simulators, both for frequency and time domain analysis.
Full SPICE Compatibility
The final output of EmCAD is a netlist of interconnected passive blocks that obey physical constraints: reciprocity, passivity, and causality. These netlists can be imported into commercial simulators like Keysight ADS, LTspice, or any SPICE-compatible engine.
Cloud-Native Architecture
EmCAD is designed for the cloud. Users prepare their simulation locally via a lightweight open-source front-end (based on OpenCascade and FreeCAD), then dispatch subdomain jobs to the cloud in parallel. Once the equivalent models are returned, the final circuit is assembled and simulated locally or in the cloud.
This enables scalable performance — without requiring upfront investment in hardware or licenses.