Analyzing broad-band electromagnetics problems with commercial software—time domain versus fFrequency domain

We present results from a comparison between time and frequency domain types of three-dimensional, commercial, finite element solvers of Maxwell’s equations. Both solvers are part of the Microwave Studio® (MWS) suite of tools, available from Computer Simulation Technology (CST). We used each solver to analyze four different broad-band problems: two printed circuits (a ring hybrid and a four-way divider), and two antennas (conical and pillbox). For engineers, design cycle time and memory usage are of prime importance, so we focused our comparison on solution time and required memory (RAM). In all four problems, the time domain solver was significantly faster and required much less memory than the frequency domain solver.