A linear-centric modeling approach to harmonic balance analysis

In this paper, we propose a new harmonic balance simulation methodology based on a linear-centric modeling approach. A linear circuit representation of the nonlinear devices and associated parasitics is used along with corresponding time and frequency domain inputs to solve for the nonlinear steady-state response via successive chord (SC) iterations. For our circuit examples, this approach is shown to be up to 60× more run-time efficient than traditional Newton-Raphson (N-R) based iterative methods, while providing the same level of accuracy. This SC-based approach converges as reliably as the N-R approaches, including for circuit problems which cause alternative relaxation-based harmonic balance approaches to fail. The efficacy of this linear-centric methodology further improves with increasing model complexity, the inclusion of interconnect parasitics and other analyses that are otherwise difficult with traditional nonlinear models