Convergence issues in resonant tunneling diode circuit simulation

Author

Bhattacharya, Mayukh ; Mazumder, Pinaki

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI, USA

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

499

Lastpage

504

Abstract

Due to its status as the fastest switching semiconductor device and its bistable nature, the resonant tunneling diode (RTD) is considered to be one of the most promising devices for future-generation high-performance VLSI systems. However, popular circuit simulators, such as SPICE, can encounter direct current (DC) and transient convergence problems while simulating RTD-based circuits because of the negative differential resistance (NDR) in the device´s current-voltage characteristics. In this paper, we study the nature of these convergence problems and provide several solution techniques that can be easily incorporated into SPICE-like circuit simulators

Keywords

VLSI; circuit simulation; digital integrated circuits; integrated circuit design; negative resistance; resonant tunnelling diodes; semiconductor device models; transients; DC problems; SPICE-like circuit simulators; bistable nature; circuit simulation; current-voltage characteristics; future-generation high-performance VLSI systems; negative differential resistance; resonant tunneling diode circuit; transient convergence problems; Analytical models; Circuit simulation; Convergence; HEMTs; Integrated circuit interconnections; MODFETs; Physics; Resonant tunneling devices; SPICE; Semiconductor diodes;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

VLSI Design, 2000. Thirteenth International Conference on

Conference_Location

Calcutta

ISSN

1063-9667

Print_ISBN

0-7695-0487-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICVD.2000.812657

Filename

812657