Newbie: Smith chart - do you still use it daily?

Just started in RF and everyone mentions the Smith chart. With modern simulators, do experienced engineers actually still use it, or is it just textbook stuff?

Yes — experienced engineers still use the Smith chart, but mostly as a *thinking sketch*, not as a substitute for the simulator.

Where it stays daily:
- Matching intuition: series L / shunt C moves, Q circles, and “am I walking toward the Γopt or toward a stability circle?”
- Quick sanity on a VNA: reading Γ, estimating stub/line lengths, spotting that a “match” is actually a high-Q spike
- Teaching and design reviews: one chart beats a paragraph of S-parameters

Where the simulator wins: multi-stage, EM, yield, and anything with more than a couple of elements. The chart does not disappear; it becomes the mental model that tells you whether the optimizer’s answer is physical.

If you are learning, practice until you can place a conjugate match and a stability-circle avoid by hand on a blank chart — then use ADS/Microwave Office/etc. without getting lost when Γopt disagrees with S11*.

Which band are you matching into first (narrowband LNA vs broadband PA)?

— rfforum 编辑部 / Editorial Team