Computer Simulation Technology

CST - Computer Simulation Technology AG
Aktiengesellschaft
Industry Software, Simulation
Founded 1992
Headquarters Darmstadt, Germany
Products CST STUDIO SUITE
Number of employees
 240(2014)
Website

CST - Computer Simulation Technology AG (CST) is a German software company with headquarters in Darmstadt.

Company

CST is a medium sized company which develops software for the simulation of electromagnetic fields in arbitrary three-dimensional structures. CST currently employs 240 people in 14 countries.

Products

The main product of CST is CST STUDIO SUITE,[1] which comprises various modules dedicated to specific application areas. There are modules for microwave&RF&optical applications, summarized in CST MICROWAVE STUDIO, low frequency (CST EM STUDIO), PCBs and packages (CST PCB STUDIO), cable harnesses (CST CABLE STUDIO), temperature and mechanical stress (CST MPHYSICS STUDIO) and for the simulation of the interaction of charged particles and electromagnetic fields (CST PARTICLE STUDIO). All modules are integrated with a system and circuit simulator (CST DESIGN STUDIO).[2]

Customers

Users of CST simulation software work mainly in the areas of microwaves&RF, EMC/EMI, particle acceleration, and various low frequency applications. Accordingly, the clientele is widespread and comprises industries such as aerospace, automation, automotive, electronics, power engineering, medical.

History

CST was founded in 1992 by Thomas Weiland. In the early years the focus was on the development and marketing of the MAFIA software package, where MAFIA stands for "solving MAxwell's equations using the Finite Integration Algorithm". MAFIA was widely used by research labs, and especially applied to the design of particle accelerators. MAFIA, a UNIX based software, employed the Finite Integration Technique(FIT), introduced by Weiland in 1977.[3] FIT - also referred to as Finite Integration Algorithm or Finite Integral Method (FIM) - is a very general approach to discretizing Maxwell's equations, that can be applied in time domain and in frequency domain.

The most important milestone in company history was the introduction of the Microsoft Windows based software CST MICROWAVE STUDIO. It featured the proprietary „Perfect Boundary Approximation(PBA)“,[4] an extension to FIT that provided users with a conformal explicit time domain method for the simulation of electromagnetic fields.

In 1999 the affiliate company CST of America, Inc. was founded in Boston. CST of Korea, Inc. followed 2001 in Seoul.

2003 saw the first installment of the "CST University Publication Award", which draws contributions from university institutes world wide, and underlines the growing importance of simulation in research.

Since 2005 CST promotes the "Complete Technology" approach. The goal is to enable users to select from different state of the art simulation methods the most appropriate while staying in one user interface. Available methods currently include FIT, Finite Element Method, Method of Moments, MLFMM, Transmission-line matrix method.

2008 CST was incorporated as Aktiengesellschaft. The same year the electromagnetic simulation branch of Flomerics,Plc. with their products MicroStripes and Flo/EMC was acquired. In 2009 CST acquired SimLab Software GmbH, a Munich software company with expertice on cable harness and PCB simulation.

2012 CST introduced a new method for the efficient simulation of systems and component assemblies: System Assembly and Modeling (SAM).[5]

[6][7][8][9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ A Software Suite with Total Synergy, Microwave Journal, Horizon House, Jan. 2006
  2. ↑ Top Products 2002, Microwaves&RF,Penton,Jan. 2003
  3. ↑ T. Weiland, “A Discretization Method for the Solution of Maxwell’s Equations for Six-Component Fields,” Electronics and Communication, (AEÜ), Vol. 31, p.116, 1977
  4. ↑ The Perfect Boundary Approximation facing the big challenge of high precision field computation, B. Krietenstein, R. Schuhmann, P. Thoma, T. Weiland, Proceedings of the XIX International Linear Accelerator Conference, 1998
  5. ↑ CST STUDIO SUITE 2012: System Assembly and Modeling, Microwave Journal, Horizon House, Dec. 2011
  6. ↑ "CST studio suite website". CST. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  7. ↑ "CST STUDIO SUITE 2013 Now Shipping". EDACafe. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  8. ↑ "CST DESIGN STUDIO". Microwave Journal. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  9. ↑ "CST 3D simulation suite". BASEBANDHUB. Retrieved 30 November 2013.