Computer-Aided Tolerance Optimization Applied to Microwave Circuits

A very important practical problem in microwave circuit design is the problem of optimal design subject to component tolerances. An approach which treats the component tolerance assignment as an integral part of computer-aided design is,. to the authors´ knowledge, new to microwave engineers. Using recent nonlinear programming techniques and Dakin´s branch and bound technique in conjunction with Fletcher´s unconstrained minimization program, a variety of continuous and discrete tolerance problems may be solved. It is planned to make the full program available.