J -- Maintenance & Hardware upgrades to High Frequency Structure Simulator

The U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), Electromagnetic Division proposes to negotiate on a sole source basis contract under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1) with Ansoft Corporation to purchase software maintenance and hardware upgrades to it suite of (HFSS) High Frequency Structure Simulator licenses. NIST has two full solve floating licenses and one additional pre-post processor floating license for Ansoft’s HFSS. The upgrade will allow NIST to use the full capabilities of the machines to perform analysis on and Optimetrics which will allow them to automatically optimize our designs and models. The following specifications are necessary to complete ongoing projects:1. The product must perform RF analysis and be 100% compatible with models made with Ansoft's HFSS version 8.2 and 9.2 and solutions generated in HFSS 9.2. 2. The product must contain call in technical support for at least one year for the software as well as maintenance, installation support, and upgrades as they become available from ANSOFT. 3. The code must be a full-wave, 3D, RF field solver capable of generating RF solutions in the electromagnetic near-field, far field and intermediate distances. 4. The code must be able to generate antenna patterns, calculate RCS, calculate SAR, perform analysis on bulk materials and user defined materials including glossy electric and magnetic materials. 5. The code must have a PML (perfectly matched layer) method for termination of the simulation region. 6. Must be able to perform complex math on solved field qualities (e.g. but not limited to vector curl, power density, flux through a given surface, voltage along an arbitrary line path, and currents through a given area of space). Solutions for full s-parameter analysis of systems must be generated. 7. The code must run on sun 64 bit OS as well as PC/windows XP. The license must be centrally located and use FLEXLM licensing software (for NIST system support). 8. At least two users must be able to solve at one time and another user develop or analyze models. 9. Functionally identical to HFSS Optimetrics must be included to allow for automatic optimization of models and solution convergence. 10. The solid modeler (The geometry input, material definition, boundary condition setup, and analysis setup) must allow direct import from AutoCAD/inventor files and IGES files. 11. The code must be able to fully utilize multiple processors and support multi-threading of solver core. 12. The code must be able to generate solutions using at least 8 GB of RAM on the 64 bit sun OS. This procurement is being conducted per FAR Part 13, Simplified Acquisition Procedures (NTE $100K). This synopsis is issued for information only. No competitive solicitation is planned. Based on our market research, Ansoft Corporation is the only vendor who can meet the requirements of this procurement. Information submitted in response to this notice will be used solely to determine whether or not use of competitive procedures to fulfill this requirement would be in the Government's best interest and must address qualifications pertinent to this requirement. Terms and Conditions can be found on http://www.arnet.gov/far/ and agency level protest procedures can be found on web site http://oamweb.osec.doc.gov/conops/reflib/alp1296.htm. Any questions regarding this notice must be submitted in writing to the attention of Ms. Rima (e-mail preferred). Anticipated award date is May 24, 2005.