Remcom Releases GPU Acceleration for 3D EM Simulation Software

Remcom reportedly announced the release of a new generation of GPU acceleration for its 3D electromagnetic simulation software, XFdtd. The company said that its XStream GPU acceleration will now provide the capacity to solve electromagnetic simulation problems up to 300 times faster than a 64-bit CPU.

 

Also the updated version of XStream will be bundled with XFdtd Release 7.0 (XF7) which is the new release of Remcom’s 3D electromagnetic simulation tool, Remcom said.

 

XStream improves EM simulation performance by employing the NVIDIA (News - Alert) graphics processing units, which are available on modern video cards for making ultra-fast FDTD numerical computations. The new generation of XStream enables the rapid completion of XF7 calculations which usually takes hours to complete when only a CPU is used. This reduces simulation time and also time to market for products.

 

Remcom said that a license to employ a single GPU for EM computation will be included in both XF7 Pro and XF7 Bio-Pro. Customers can now purchase additional capability for multiple GPUs.

 

“Existing XStream customers will experience speeds up to twice as fast as the previous release without the need to upgrade their existing hardware,” said Jim Stack, manager of Remcom’s training, applications and consulting team, in a statement. “By employing the power and flexibility of NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture, all customers will enjoy the freedom to choose from a broader range of GPUs to fit their particular budget and simulation speed needs.”

 

Scott Langdon, product manager for Remcom’s EM software tools, pointed out that speed has become one of the most critical requirements in performing EM simulations. The ability to perform complex calculations in less time is a competitive necessity; with the increased accessibility of high-end GPUs.

 

To cater to the demands of customers, Remcom is providing an extra boost in speed, at no cost, and making this a standard part of the software for providing greater benefit to customers, said company sources.

 

NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture and the associated C Compiler toolkit allow developers to use the CPU and the GPU in a co-processing model. Electromagnetic simulation applications which are computationally intensive employ massively parallel computing of the GPU while the sequential part of an application’s code runs on the CPU. This reduces time taken to get results.

 

XF7 is the latest version of Remcom’s 3D EM simulation tool for antenna design and analysis, biological EM analysis, microwave circuit design and other EM simulation applications. On purchase of XF7 Pro and XF7 Bio-Pro customers will receive the XStream capability automatically.

 

Remcom also said that current customers of XFdtd with an active Remcom Professional Support contract can get the new functionality by downloading a free upgrade.