RF Toolbox

Design, model, and analyze networks of RF components

RF Toolbox provides functions and apps for designing, modeling, analyzing, and visualizing radio frequency (RF) networks used in wireless communications, radar, and signal integrity applications.

You can model RF networks—including filters, transmission lines, amplifiers, and mixers—using measurement data, network parameters, RF system parameters, or physical properties. Idealized baseband models enable you to perform high-level simulation of RF components for integration with system-level testbenches and DSP algorithm development. The RF Budget Analyzer app lets you analyze gain, noise, and power budget of transceiver chains and generate RF Blockset models.

You can analyze and convert S, Y, Z, and T network parameters, and visualize the results using Cartesian plots, polar plots, or Smith charts. You can also de-embed, check, and enforce passivity, and compute group and phase delay. Rational function fitting lets you model interconnects and export them to Simulink, SPICE, or Verilog^®-A.

S-Parameters

Read and write N-port Touchstone^® files. Visualize S-parameter data on Cartesian, polar, or Smith charts. Convert to Y, Z, T, ABCD, single-ended, differential, and other formats. De-embed measurements to remove the effects of test fixtures and access structures.

Getting Started with S-Parameters (5 videos)

Documentation | Examples

RF Budget Analysis

Determine system-level specifications of RF transceivers for wireless communications and radar systems. Analyze noise, power, gain, and nonlinearity budgets for a cascade of RF components. Use harmonic balance to accurately analyze nonlinear effects.

RF Data Analysis and System Design for Scientific Applications, Part 1: Getting Started with RF Data Analysis (45:10)

Documentation | Examples

Block diagram of a simple RF transmitter, with its respective MATLAB model, and the resulting constellation for a 5G standard-compliant signal.

System Simulation

Simulate RF components such as amplifiers, mixers, and filters in MATLAB with idealized baseband models that include thermal and phase noise specifications, nonlinearity parameters such as IP3 and saturation, measured data such as S-parameters, and AM-PM characteristics.

Documentation  |  Examples

Results of S-parameters fitting for a SAW filter, and comparison with the original data in magnitude and phase.

Rational Fitting

Fit S-parameters and other frequency-domain data, and extract equivalent poles and zeros. Check and enforce passivity and causality. Use the resulting rational object to perform time-domain simulation with RF Blockset or SerDes Toolbox, or export it as an equivalent SPICE netlist or Verilog-A module.

Tuning and response optimization of extracted coupled-resonator filter models (18:58)

Documentation  |  Examples

Antenna impedance optimization with the Matching Network Designer app.

RF Network Design

Design RF circuits such as filters and matching networks using lumped RLC elements, transmission lines characterized by physical properties, or measured S-parameters. Select RLC components by vendor and specifications from substrate-scalable Modelithics^® libraries.

Introducing the Modelithics SELECT+ Library for MATLAB (23:18)

Documentation | Examples

Product Resources:

Documentation Examples Videos Technical articles Functions Requirements Release notes

Automating the Analysis of RF Measurement Data for High-Performance Computing Cables

“High-throughput, low-latency passive copper cables and active optical cables play a vital role in high-performance computing, providing interconnections between the tens, hundreds, or even thousands of nodes in a high-performance computing cluster. … The S-Parameter Compliance Tool automates many manual processing steps, calculates decibel loss and other performance metrics, and generates a comprehensive report in Microsoft^® Excel^® format with detailed results and graphs. I estimate that development time would have been five to 10 times longer without the built-in functionality provided by MATLAB and RF Toolbox.”

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RF Toolbox FAQs

RF Toolbox provides functions, objects, and apps for designing, modeling, analyzing, and visualizing networks of radio frequency (RF) components, supporting wireless communications, radar, and signal integrity applications.

You can build networks of RF components such as filters, transmission lines, matching networks, amplifiers, and mixers, specifying them using measurement data like Touchstone files, network parameters, or physical properties.

RF Toolbox lets you read and write N-port Touchstone files, visualize S-parameter data on cartesian, polar, or Smith charts, convert among network parameter formats, and de-embed measured data to remove test fixture effects.

The RF Budget Analyzer app analyzes transceiver chains in terms of noise, power, gain, and nonlinearity budgets using Friis and harmonic balance for non-linear effects, and generates RF Blockset models for circuit envelope simulation.

Yes, using rational fitting, you can model components like backplanes and interconnects and export them as Simulink blocks, SPICE netlists, or Verilog-A modules for time-domain simulation in RF Blockset or SerDes Toolbox.

RF Toolbox supports designing RF circuits such as filters and matching networks using lumped RLC elements, transmission lines characterized by physical properties, or measured S-parameters, with component selection from substrate-scalable Modelithics libraries.

You can convert among S, Y, Z, T, and other network parameter formats, as well as convert single-ended measurements into differential formats. Additionally you can de-embed measurements,

Yes, RF Toolbox provides functions to check and enforce passivity and causality, and compute group and phase delay for your RF networks. You can also use IEEE P370 standard function for quality checks.