A reduced order thermal model with application to multi-fin field effect transistor structure

A reduced order model based on proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) has been applied to a multi-fin SOI field effective transistor (FinFET) to develop a compact thermal model. The approach projects the simulation domain onto a function space in order to reduce the numerical degrees of freedom (DOF). The approach does not require any assumption about the physical geometry, dimensions, or heat flow paths, as needed in other compact thermal models. The POD models created using periodic and synchronized random power pulse excitations have been examined using excitations with time shifts, width variations and amplitude modulations. In addition, a simulation structure has been proposed to account for realistic boundary conditions for the developed POD model. It has been shown that the developed POD models provide accurate thermal solutions as detailed as the direct numerical simulation (DNS) with a reduction in numerical DOF by 5 to 6 orders of magnitude.