Palace is an open-source 3D electromagnetic simulator supporting eigenmode, driven (S-parameter), and electrostatic simulations. This notebook demonstrates using the gsim.palace API to run a driven simulation on a microstrip transmission line with via ports.
Requirements:
- IHP PDK:
uv pip install ihp-gdsfactory - GDSFactory+ account for cloud simulation
Load a pcell from IHP PDK¶
import gdsfactory as gf
from ihp import LAYER, PDK, cells
PDK.activate()
c = gf.Component()
r1 = c << cells.straight_metal(length=1000, width=14)
r = c.get_region(layer=LAYER.TopMetal2drawing)
r_sized = r.sized(+20000)
c.add_polygon(r_sized, layer=LAYER.Metal1drawing)
c.add_ports(r1.ports)
cc = c.copy()
cc.draw_ports()
cc

Configure and run simulation with DrivenSim¶
from gsim.palace import DrivenSim
# Create simulation object
sim = DrivenSim()
# Set output directory
sim.set_output_dir("./palace-sim-microstrip")
# Set the component geometry
sim.set_geometry(c)
# Configure layer stack from active PDK
sim.set_stack(substrate_thickness=2.0, air_above=300.0)
# Configure via ports (Metal1 ground plane to TopMetal2 signal)
for port in c.ports:
sim.add_port(port.name, from_layer="metal1", to_layer="topmetal2", geometry="via")
# Configure driven simulation (frequency sweep for S-parameters)
sim.set_driven(fmin=1e9, fmax=100e9, num_points=300)
# Validate configuration
print(sim.validate_config())
Validation: PASSED
Warning : 12 ill-shaped tets are still in the mesh
Warning : ------------------------------
Warning : Mesh generation error summary
Warning : 1 warning
Warning : 0 errors
Warning : Check the full log for details
Warning : ------------------------------
Mesh Summary
========================================
Dimensions: 1140.0 x 154.0 x 318.3 µm
Nodes: 6,226
Elements: 46,959
Tetrahedra: 33,311
Edge length: 0.40 - 285.00 µm
Quality: 0.392 (min: 0.001)
SICN: 0.432 (all valid)
----------------------------------------
Volumes (3):
- SiO2 [1]
- passive [2]
- air [3]
Surfaces (11):
- metal1_xy [4]
- metal1_z [5]
- topmetal2_xy [6]
- topmetal2_z [7]
- P1 [8]
- P2 [9]
- SiO2__None [10]
- SiO2__passive [11]
- passive__None [12]
- air__passive [13]
- air__None [14]
----------------------------------------
Mesh: palace-sim-microstrip/palace.msh

Run simulation on GDSFactory+ Cloud¶
palace-c28b2e42 completed 3m 48s
Extracting results.tar.gz...
Downloaded 10 files to sim-data-palace-c28b2e42
Port mapping: Port 1: e1, Port 2: e2
Port mapping: Port 1: e1, Port 2: e2