AWR Corporation
AWR Corporation is an electronic design automation (EDA) software company, founded by Dr. Joseph E. Pekarek, with Ted A. Miracco and Dr. Stephen A. Maas. The company, formerly known as Applied Wave Research, Inc., is a National Instruments company. Other locations include research and development centers in: San Jose, California; Boulder, Colorado; Helsinki, Finland; and Mequon, Wisconsin. The company has additional subsidiaries operating in the United Kingdom, France and Japan. Investors in AWR include CMEA Ventures, Intel Capital and Synopsys Inc.
The company develops, markets, sells and supports engineering software, which provides a computer-based environment for the design of hardware for wireless and high speed digital products. AWR software is used for radio frequency (RF), microwave and high frequency analog circuit and system design. Typical applications include cellular and satellite communications systems and defense electronics including radar, electronic warfare and guidance systems.
AWR's product portfolio includes Microwave Office, Visual System Simulator (VSS), Analog Office, APLAC, AXIEM and Analyst. AWR's worldwide customers include companies involved in the design and development of analog and mixed signal semiconductors, wireless communications equipment, aerospace and defense systems.
History
The company was founded in 1994 by Dr. Joseph E. Pekarek and a team of MMIC design engineers, including Paul Cameron, from Hughes Aircraft Co. in Fullerton, California. First established as Applied Wave Research, AWR was founded to improve the design efficiency for RF and microwave circuit and system design. The vision of the company was to provide a modern object-oriented EDA environment that could streamline high frequency electronic design by integrating schematic entry and layout; electromagnetic (EM) and circuit theory; and frequency and time-domain methods.
In 1998 the company demonstrated the Microwave Office software, which included EM, circuit simulation and schematic capture, at the International Microwave Symposium in Baltimore, Maryland. The software became a popular alternative to mainstream EDA products and the company experienced significant growth. In 2010 the company has more than 100 employees worldwide in North America, Europe, Japan, and the Asia Pacific Region.
As of 2010, AWR Corporation's major competitors include the EEsof EDA division of Agilent Technologies, Ansoft Corporation, and Cadence Design Systems.
Acquisitions
- 1999: Acquired ICUCOM Corporation, Troy, New York. Through this acquisition AWR acquired the communication systems simulation software called ACOLADE. ACOLADE stood for Advanced Communication Link Analysis and Design Environment. AWR re-engineered the software and evolved the technology and libraries into a new tool: Visual System Simulator (VSS), which was introduced in 2002.
- 2005: Acquired APLAC Solutions, Oy, Espoo, Finland. AWR acquired APLAC, which developed simulation and analysis software for analog and radio-frequency (RF) design. APLAC's RF design technology, used by Nokia Mobile Phones for years, has been used in designing mobile phone RF integrated circuits (ICs) worldwide. The merger of the two electronic design automation (EDA) software developers was driven by key customer demand for APLAC's high-performance, foundry-approved circuit simulation strength combined with the open, integrated AWR Design Environment(TM) technology.
- 2008: Acquired STAAR Corporation, Mequon, Wisconsin. STAAR developed proprietary parallelized 3D FEM EM simulation and analysis capability, which is embodied in the Analystâ„¢ software. The Analyst software is the result of more than a decade of development at STAAR in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense and U. S. Department of Energy, and has been employed to analyze extremely complex RF and microwave structures at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and Naval Research Laboratory.
It was acquired by National Instruments in 2011.[1]
See also
Notes
References
- EETimes (February 2008): 'Meeting the challenges of WiMax design with new methodologies'
- Microwaves&RF (December 2007): 'Top Products Of 2007'
- RFDesign (September 2007): 'Automated circuit extraction dramatically speeds complex interconnect modeling'
- Microwave Journal (September 2007): 'Microwave Journal Speaks With Sherry Hess, AWR'
- Microwave Journal (April 2007): 'Designing Modules for Concurrency in Multimedia Co-design'
- RFGlobalnet (February 2007): 'Interconnect Modeling and Simulation for RFIC Design'
- RFDesign (March 2006): 'Artificial neural networking improves PA design'
- IEEE Institute (August 2005): 'Member Profile From Cattle to Computers'
- 'AWR Acquires European EDA Developer APLAC Solutions Oy; Customer Interest Drives Merger of APLAC Simulation Strength with AWR Integrated Design Environment'
- 'AWR Acquires Simulation Technology and Applied Research, Inc. (STAAR)'