Publications

Computational Algorithms for Device-Circuit Coupling

Keiter, Eric R.; Keiter, Eric R.; Hutchinson, Scott A.; Hoekstra, Robert J.; Rankin, Eric R.; Russo, Thomas V.; Waters, Lon J.

Circuit simulation tools (e.g., SPICE) have become invaluable in the development and design of electronic circuits. Similarly, device-scale simulation tools (e.g., DaVinci) are commonly used in the design of individual semiconductor components. Some problems, such as single-event upset (SEU), require the fidelity of a mesh-based device simulator but are only meaningful when dynamically coupled with an external circuit. For such problems a mixed-level simulator is desirable, but the two types of simulation generally have different (sometimes conflicting) numerical requirements. To address these considerations, we have investigated variations of the two-level Newton algorithm, which preserves tight coupling between the circuit and the partial differential equations (PDE) device, while optimizing the numerics for both.