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Such systems are used in mobile phones and communications satellites and, with the current very rapid growth in such 'wireless' communications development, design engineers are facing enormous challenges which require very sophisticated CAD tools. 
 
"Various technological tools for aspects such as schematic capture, electromagnetic solvers and digital modulation simulators are all available as isolated offerings from different companies and universities in Europe, including UCD," says Professor Tom Brazil of the Microwave Research Group at UCD, which has led a consortium of major European commercial companies and vendors in the project. "What we have been doing is make them function  and interwork together, so that from the user point of view there is avery advanced integrated functionality." 

The tangible result of the project - called EDGE, an acronym for Enhanced Design in Gallium Arsenide/Silicon in Europe - is a unified computer interface through which all the individual modules or tools can be accessed. Less tangible but just as important has been the development of a business model under which the disparate partners in the project could operate. 
 
"The partners in the project are manufacturing companies such as Dassault Electronique in France, Phillips Microwave in France, GEC Marconi in the UK and there are vendors involved - Jansen Microwave in Germany, Barnard Microsystems and GaAscode in the UK. Among the business elements which had to be sorted out were how to deal with intellectual property rights, support and security. Because the other partners were in the commercial arena, they all wanted a 'neutral' coordinator. So that's how an academic partner got to lead the others, which is unusual." 

The project comes to a conclusion in the next few months, but some of the results are already being used and offered commercially by various members of the consortium. Tom Brazil says there is much work yet to be done, but he is happy that a great deal of progress has been made on both the technical and the business side. "The bigger partners in the consortium are 
evaluating what we've done, to see from their point of view whether this sort of concept works. I think it is the philosophy that is the significant thing in what we have achieved - it is open and it is modular, and therefore it puts the user in control . . . and it is open not just to European organisations but to other organisations around the world, particularly universities, who would like to offer advanced software solutions in this area." 

As well as overall management of the project, UCD provided technological contributions in nonlinear modelling of semiconductor devices and in nonlinear simulation software. A probable future development is the spinning-off of a campus company to market and further develop aspects of the technology, which can be used in an increasing number of areas requiring design of high-frequency systems. "A key strategic objective was to give European companies 'ownership' in new technology developments which need this kind of CAD design. It is very important - Europe led the world in the development of mobile phones, for instance, and got a great deal of the subsequent manufacturing. The next generation of mobile phones are now coming on, and advanced CAD in high frequencies is one of the critical technologies required to be at the forefront of their development. 

Future uses for the technology are in dealing with the huge design challenges for high-speed computers operating at thousands of MHz, and in advanced new technologies such as the development of local multipoint distribution systems (LMDS) which could be used for rapid deployment of wireless broadband internet access to users anywhere."