Keysight Model Builder (MBP) 2025

Keysight Model Builder Program (MBP) is a specialized software environment for creating, verifying, and managing custom behavioral models for analog and mixed-signal (AMS) circuits. It is a crucial tool for system-level simulation, allowing designers to create fast, accurate representations of complex ICs, modules, or systems without using computationally intensive transistor-level netlists.

The core value proposition is enabling top-down design and system verification. By creating a "virtual prototype" of a component (like an ADC, DAC, PLL, or entire SerDes channel), system architects can validate performance and interactions before silicon is available, and IC designers can provide a model to their customers without revealing proprietary transistor-level details.

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Key Expected Features & Enhancements in MBP 2025

A 2025 release would focus on integration, automation, and addressing the challenges of next-generation technologies.

1. Enhanced AI/ML-Powered Model Generation

• Automated Model Fitting from Measured Data: Advanced algorithms that can automatically analyze lab measurement data (e.g., from a Keysight oscilloscope or VNA) and generate optimized behavioral model parameters with minimal user input.

• Smart Model Synthesis: The ability to generate a model's structure or architecture based on a high-level textual description (e.g., "create a 5th order continuous-time sigma-delta modulator with 100 MHz bandwidth") or from a reference circuit netlist.

• Predictive Performance Modeling: Using ML to predict how model accuracy will degrade outside the characterized range of data and suggest additional measurement points.

2. Tighter Integration with the Keysight Ecosystem

• Seamless PathWave ADS & SystemVue Integration: One-click export and validation of models within PathWave ADS for circuit/system simulation and SystemVue for system-level/PHY-layer analysis. The workflow from model creation in MBP to simulation in ADS would be virtually seamless.

• Live Link with Bench Instruments: A bidirectional connection where a model created in MBP can be downloaded to a instrument like a PathWave Vector Signal Generator, and measurement results from a scope or VNA can be directly streamed into MBP for model validation or refinement.

• Cloud-Based Model Libraries: Enhanced access to the Keysight Model Library with cloud-based distribution, version control, and community-sharing features for certified models.

3. Advanced Modeling Language & Verification Support

• Full Support for Latest Standards: Robust support for VHDL-AMS 2023 and Verilog-AMS LRM updates, ensuring models are compatible with the latest simulators.

• Enhanced UVM-MS for Analog Verification: Deeper integration of Universal Verification Methodology for Mixed-Signal (UVM-MS) within MBP, allowing engineers to build not just the model but also the sophisticated testbenches and checkers needed for verification.

• C++ Model Development Kit (MDK) Improvements: A more powerful and intuitive framework for creating the highest-performance models in C++.

4. Usability and Workflow Automation

• Visual Model Builder & Debugger: An improved graphical interface for constructing models from block diagrams, with integrated debugging to visualize model behavior (e.g., internal states, limiting functions) during the development phase.

• Automated Model Validation & Reporting: A streamlined workflow that automatically runs a suite of validation tests (comparing the model to reference data), generating a comprehensive "model passport" or report card detailing accuracy, bounds of operation, and performance.

• Template-Based & Wizard-Driven Creation: More pre-built templates and wizards for common components like SerDes (NRZ/PAM4), power converters, and RF amplifiers to jumpstart the modeling process.

5. Focus on Emerging Technologies

• Photonic & Co-Design Modeling: Enhanced capabilities for modeling photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and their electro-optical interactions, a critical area for high-speed communications and sensing.

• Power Integrity & EM Modeling: Tighter links with EM simulation tools (like Keysight EMPro) to automatically generate behavioral models of power delivery networks (PDNs) and passive structures for system-level power integrity analysis.