What's New in 19.54.2026

Welcome to Sonnet version 19.54.2026! This version is a minor update to Sonnet version 19.52.2025. Below you will find a summary of the main improvements that are included in this version. 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 improvements.

New Improvements

The following is a list of the main new features in 19.54.2026:

Multi-threading performance improvements: The EM solver's multi-threading performance has been substantially improved.

Conformal Mesh improvements: The Conformal Mesh meshing model has numerous fixes and improvements.

Enhanced Resonance Detection improvements: The Enhanced Resonance Detection algorithm has numerous fixes and improvements.

More efficient quadruple precision for Windows: The previous Sonnet version (19.52.2025) introduced support for multi-threaded quad precision calculations, but quad precision in Windows was much slower than in Linux. In this release, quad precision for Windows is still slower than on Linux, but it is a lot faster in this release than in previous releases.

Macro language additions: Sonnet's macro language now includes the ability to specify symmetry, reference planes, variable units, tables for dielectrics, Technology Files, and advanced EM solver options such as de-embedding, compute currents and subsectioning controls. In addition, Get and Fetch commands have been added to retrieve information about your project.

DXF/GDSII import improvements: Several improvements were made to the DXF/GDSII import process.

  • The import wizard now allows the user to view the number of polygons associated with each layer.
  • A new option, "Flatten Project", has been added. It will process Derived Layers and Precedence when using a template file for import.
  • A new option, "Clean Geometry" has been added. It will remove redundant points and polygons from your imported project.
  • The speed of the translation process has been improved significantly.

Layer Mapping menu added to Project Editor: A new menu item has been added to the Project Editor: Circuit > Mapping. When translating to or from third-party tools such as Keysight ADS or artwork formats such as DXF, GDSII, or Gerber, each CAD layer you wish to translate must be mapped to a Sonnet Tech Layer. This mapping information may be stored in the Technology File or your project file. You may edit this information by editing the properties of the Tech Layer. However, this process can be tedious when editing multiple Tech Layers. To aid you in this process, a mapping tool has been added to the Project Editor and can be accessed by selecting Circuit > Mapping.

New Derived Tech Layers features: Several new features have been added to Derived Tech Layers.

  • Derived Tech Layers may now refer to other Derived Tech Layers.
  • Any source layer used by a Derived Tech Layer may be automatically deleted after flattening. See Remove After Flatten.
  • The OR and DIFF operations can be set to only affect overlapping polygons.
  • You may create a flattened project by selecting File > Export > Flattened Project from the main Project Editor menu.

Enhanced command line support: Opening a graph or pattern from the command line has been enhanced to support using a template file. See Use a Script to Export Graph or Pattern Data for more information.

Changes

Compatibility: This Sonnet version is completely compatible with Sonnet 19.52.2025 unless your project file contains a new feature that is only available in Sonnet 19.54.2026. Sonnet 19.52.2025 will ignore any new features such as the new Derived Layer features.

ABS Options: A slight change has been made to the ABS options (Circuit > Settings > EM Options). Q-Factor accuracy and Enhanced Resonance Detection are incompatible with each other, but in previous Sonnet versions you could enable both options simultaneously. In this version, these options have been made mutually exclusive so you can no longer select both. If you open an old project with both enabled, you will receive a warning message that Q-Factor Accuracy has been disabled.

Default Number of Threads: In previous releases, the EM solver would limit the number of threads used based on two criteria: your license and your hardware. For example, if your license limited your number of threads to 16 and your hardware had only 4 cores, the EM solver would run using 4 threads. But after extensive testing, we discovered that running with more threads than the number of cores available provided a slight performance boost. Therefore, in this release the default number of threads used is based solely on your license, regardless of your hardware. If you want to reduce the number of threads used, you may change it in the Administration dialog box.

Bug Fixes

For a list of minor enhancements, changes, and fixed bugs in this release, please refer to Sonnet 19.54.2025 Release Notes.