Time-domain interconnect characterisation flow for appropriate model segmentation

The authors present a new method to find low-complexity time-domain interconnect models that obey a certain specified accuracy in relation to the true waveform. The method rests on an characterisation flow that considers the whole interconnect environment, including driver and receiver. Furthermore, as output the method defines simple rules for appropriate model segment type, RC or RLC and minimal number of model segments. The authors show the application of the method by deriving segment-selection rules for one case, using a particular interconnect, driver, receiver and discrepancy constraint on model against true waveform. In a comparison with a reduced-order modelling technique, the models obtained from the method show good correlation to Lanczos-process-based Krylov subspaces.