Time-domain adjoint sensitivity of high-speed interconnects

An efficient approach based on adjoint sensitivity is presented for time-domain sensitivity analysis of linear and networks containing lossy transmission lines. The sensitivity of an output with respect to all parameters of interest can be calculated by simulating the original and adjoint circuits simultaneously. The proposed approach provides a significant decrease in the computational expense for sensitivity analysis because no additional L/U factors are required for simulating the adjoint circuit. Moreover, the proposed method is general in nature and can be used with any suitable transmission line macromodelling technique.