What's New in this Release

Welcome to Sonnet release 19! Below you will find a summary of the main features that are included in this release. If you are a regular Sonnet user, please also review the important changes to the software and known issues which are listed after the new features.

New Features

The following is a list of the main new features in this release:

Enhanced Performance for All Solvers: All solver licenses have enhanced performance in v19. The Level 2 Basic through Pro Desktop solvers have at least a doubling in the number of threads that can be utilized. Best of all, High Performance Solver licenses are upgraded with full Beowulf capability upon request, free of charge. 

Suite Level v18 Threads v19 Threads
Level 2 Basic 1 2
Level 2 Silver 1 4
Level 3 Gold 1 8
Pro Desktop 8 16
Pro High Performance 64 64 + Beowulf

Advanced Instruction Sets: Sonnet now supports advanced instruction sets such as AVX2 and AVX512.

Expanded Material Libraries: A greatly expanded material library includes direct manufacturer support for material parameters including anisotropy. See Material Libraries for more details.

Temperature-dependent Conductor Materials: You may optionally specify a temperature dependency of any conductor material. See Temperature Dependency for details.

Frequency-dependent Dielectric Materials: Any dielectric parameter may now use a frequency-dependent table of values in place of a constant or a variable. Many of the dielectric material library entries use tables.

Expanded Technology Files: Handling complex semiconductor processes has never been easier in Sonnet. Now with more accessible metal bias information, automatic CAD Layer mapping, Derived Tech Layers, and encrypted data file format carryover and overrides, it’s easy to make sure your simulation reflects your design.

Macro Language and XML-Based File Format: With an all new file format based on XML, programmatic project editing and optimization is easier than ever. Users can drive Sonnet programmatically from languages including Python, Ruby, MATLAB, C#, JavaScript, PowerShell, and more using Sonnet's new macro language. See Using Sonnet's Macro Language for details.

Derived Tech Layers: A new type of Tech Layer is introduced in Sonnet 19 called a "Derived" Tech Layer. See Derived Tech Layers for details.

Precedence: A new property of a Tech Layer, called "Precedence" may be used to define how overlapping polygons are interpreted. If two or more polygons on the same level overlap, and those polygons have different properties, their Precedence is used to determine the properties of the overlapping area. See Overlapping Polygons.

Improved Import Wizard for DXF/GDSII Translations: The Import Wizard now has a much cleaner design and new features have been added. It now supports adding drawing purposes to allow more flexibility in mapping input layers to Sonnet Tech Layers. This includes the ability to import multiple drawing purpose types to the same Tech Layer. You also have the ability to import a port purpose to automatically generate Sonnet ports (see Automatic Port Placement for details).

Via Tech Layers: In previous Sonnet versions, you specified the beginning and ending locations of a Via Tech Layer by specifying level numbers. Now, you may also specify a Planar Tech Layer as the beginning and/or ending location.

Enhanced User Equations: User Equations for graphs have been enhanced. You may create equations which use any of the Sonnet built-in measurements and include intermediate arguments. See Equation Editor Window for more details.

Alternative Color Palettes:  Additional color palettes are now available for current density plots and 3D patterns. These new color palettes have multiple benefits including better readability for people with common forms of color blindness and/or color vision deficiency.  They are also useful when you need a single plot that works for both color and monochrome publishing formats. These new color palettes can be accessed using View > Options > [Colors] (for current density plots) and Graph > Graph Options > [Colors] (for 3D patterns). You may also create your own custom color palette (contact Sonnet Tech Support for details).

Quadruple Precision: Certain types of circuits (especially those with extremely high Q, such as those found in many superconductor circuits), require more precision than the standard double precision provides. For those circuits, enabling quad precision may be necessary. The EM solver now supports multi-threaded quad precision calculations for the matrix fill portion of the analysis. See EM Options for more information. Please note that running with quad precision requires longer analysis times than running with the default double precision, but it is much faster than previous releases.

Migration Tool: When you first open Sonnet, you will be given the opportunity to copy your settings from a previously installed version of Sonnet to the present version. You may also access the migration tool later by selecting Admin > Migration Tool from the main Session tab.

Streamlined Documentation: Learning the software and new features has never been easier with the fully revamped online help.

Beowulf Solver (Beta): Culminating nearly a decade of development, Beowulf is the world’s first commercial solver based on the Unified-FFT Algorithm [4]. Beowulf uses the same project files and interface as always, simulates with the same accuracy for which Sonnet is known, while allowing for much larger projects with faster results than ever before. While Beowulf benefits from N log N scaling, our direct full matrix solver is one of the most efficient there is. Please contact Sonnet Software if you wish to evaluate the Beowulf solver. See EM Solvers for more information.

A Beowulf license is required to use the Beowulf solver.

Changes

The following is a list of major changes from Sonnet 18. For example, creating your material stackup now uses a more hierarchical approach. If you are familiar with Sonnet 18, you should review this list before attempting to use this release of Sonnet.

File Format Change

In Sonnet release18 and earlier, Sonnet project files were saved with a .son extension. In this release, Sonnet project files are saved with a .sonx extension and use an XML-based format. Legacy files with the .son extension are still supported. For example, you can still open and edit them in the Sonnet Project Editor and analyze them with the EM solver. However, any time you save a file, it will use the new format which cannot be opened by Sonnet 18 or earlier.

Materials

This release includes a redesign of how materials are defined:

  • There are now two types of materials: conductor materials and dielectric materials.
  • Instead of separate planar and via metals, they have been combined into "conductors".
  • Instead of separate dielectric layer and brick materials, they have been combined into "dielectrics".
  • Metal Types no longer exists in Sonnet 19. The parameters associated with Metal Types are now specified in either the conductor properties or the Tech Layer.

See Materials - Overview for an introduction to the new design.

Tech Layers

In previous versions of Sonnet, Tech Layers were optional; i.e., polygons did not need to be assigned to a Tech Layer. In Sonnet 19, all polygons must now be assigned to a Tech Layer. There are also significant changes to Tech Layers as described below.

Planar Tech Layers

Tech Layers using planar metal were called "Metal Technology Layers" in version 18. They are now called "Planar Tech Layers". A Planar Tech Layer represents any metal which is parallel to the xy plane. A Planar Tech Layer is now composed of the following properties:

  • Level number: No change from Sonnet 18.
  • Conductor material: See the Materials section above. Typically, this is just the conductivity or resistivity of the metal, but can also contain surface impedance, temperature dependency, etc. 
  • Meshing: Rectangular Mesh or Conformal Mesh. Note that the old "Staircase fill" is now called "Rectangular Mesh". "Diagonal Fill" is now an advanced property of Rectangular Mesh and is enabled using a checkbox called "Diagonal Edges". You may also uncheck Enable Meshing and the polygons will not be meshed by the EM Solver.
  • Metal Model: Allows you to choose how to model the metal thickness. In previous releases, this information was stored in the "Metal Type". For the Thick Metal Model, a new property has been added called "Z-Mesh Method" that only applies when using more than two sheets or the thick metal spans multiple dielectrics. See Z-Mesh Method for details.
  • Roughness: Surface roughness is now a property of the Tech Layer instead of a special metal type.
  • Color/Pattern: The color and pattern of a polygon is now determined by the Tech Layer instead of the Metal Type.
  • Mapping: Mapping now allows lists of mappings for multiple DXF, GDS, Gerber and CAD Layer mappings to the same Tech Layer. See Mapping for details.

See Planar Tech Layers for more details.

Via Tech Layers

A Via Tech Layer represents vertical metal; i.e., in the z direction.  A Via Tech Layer is now composed of the following properties:

  • Begin/End: The Begin and End fields can be a metal level or a Planar Tech Layer. For Thick Metal or TrueVolume Tech Layers, the via will attach to the closest surface.
  • Conductor material: See the Materials section above.
  • Meshing: A new checkbox called "Vias stop at metal polygons" has been added to the meshing properties which has the same functionality of the project-wide "Auto-height vias" property in previous Sonnet releases. You can now set individual Tech Layers to use this property.
  • Metal Model: The Metal Model determines the cross-sectional area used to compute the loss of a via (either Volume or Array).
  • Color/Pattern: The color and pattern of a via polygon is now determined by the Tech Layer instead of the Metal Type.
  • Mapping: Mapping now allows lists of mappings for multiple DXF, GDS, Gerber and CAD Layer mappings to the same Tech Layer. See Mapping for details.

See Via Tech Layers for more details.

Brick Tech Layers

In previous versions of Sonnet, the number of Z-partitions was a property of the dielectric layer. It is now a property of the Brick Tech Layer.

Derived Tech Layers

A new type of Tech Layer is introduced in Sonnet 19 called a "Derived" Tech Layer. See Derived Tech Layers for details.

Overrides

By default, polygons inherit their properties from the Tech Layer to which they are assigned, and an inheritance symbol Inherit icon next to the property indicates that the polygon property is inheriting from the Tech Layer. If you override a property, the symbol changes to an override iconOverride icon. See Inherit vs. Override for more details.

Documentation

The User's Guide and online help have been combined into a single document. Also, the documentation is now completely online. This provides more flexibility in updating the documentation based on customer needs.

Reprise License Manager

License management is easier than ever with the new license manager powered by Reprise software. If you typically use use an environment variable (e.g., LM_LICENSE_FILE or SONNETD_LICENSE_FILE), or if you just want to know more about licensing, please refer to Licensing.

Due to a hardware compatibility issue, USB Flex IDs (e.g., Host ID FLEXID=9-123A45B6) will not work in Sonnet 19. Please contact the Sonnet License Administrator for options.

Release Notes

For a list of minor enhancements, changes, and fixed bugs in this release, please refer to Sonnet 19.52.2025 Release Notes.