Investigation of EMC in high-speed on-chip transmission lines by a new hybrid quasi-static finite difference-FEM technique

In this paper we present a new computational technique to investigate wave phenomena and EMC/EMI interactions in high speed transmission lines and interconnects on the chip level. The proposed time-domain method is based on the very different nature of the electromagnetic problem in the conductors and semiconductors, compared to the insulating media that separate conducting regions and fill the intermediate volume. Therefore, the purely static problem in the regions filled with silicon oxide is totally separated from the diffusion problem in the conducting regions. The latter one is solved by means of a simple and efficient DuFort-Frankel technique using finite differences, while the static problem is dealt with by means of a finite element method with coarse meshing, since outside the conductors the field variations are much less intense. In each time step, the problems in the two regions are appropriately coupled by means of proper interface conditions.