Thermal Modeling of Multi-Fin Field Effect Transistor Structure Using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition

An approach is proposed to project thermal behavior in a semiconductor integrated-circuit structure onto a functional space based on the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The approach substantially reduces the numerical degrees of freedom (DOF) needed for thermal simulations and requires no assumptions about physical geometry, dimensions, or heat flow paths. The POD approach is applied to a multi-fin FinFET structure having heat sources driven by power pulse excitations with time shifts, width variations, and amplitude modulations. The POD models were compared with detailed numerical simulations (DNS) and it was shown that the POD approach provides thermal solutions that were as accurate and detailed as the DNS. It offers a reduction in numerical DOFs by nearly six orders of magnitude to capture the peak temperatures in multi-fin FinFETs.