A Layered Finite Element Method for High-Capacity Electromagnetic Analysis of High-Frequency ICs

This paper proposes a high-capacity electromagnetic solution, layered finite element method, for large-scale high-frequency IC analysis. In this method, first, the matrix system of the original 3D problem is reduced to that of 2D layers. Second, the matrix system of 2D layers is further reduced to that of a single layer. Third, a special excitation and extraction technique is proposed to further speed up the analysis. This technique limits the field unknowns needed for the final circuit extraction to those on a single layer only, and hence eliminating the need of recovering field solutions in other layers as well as simplifying the matrix reduction significantly. The entire numerical procedure is rigorous without making any approximation. The computational complexity only involves solving a single layer no matter how large the original problem is. Hence, the proposed method is equipped with a high capacity to solve large-scale IC problems. Numerical results are given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method