Publications

Parallel algorithm strategies for circuit simulation

Keiter, Eric R.; Thornquist, Heidi K.; Schiek, Richard S.

Circuit simulation tools (e.g., SPICE) have become invaluable in the development and design of electronic circuits. However, they have been pushed to their performance limits in addressing circuit design challenges that come from the technology drivers of smaller feature scales and higher integration. Improving the performance of circuit simulation tools through exploiting new opportunities in widely-available multi-processor architectures is a logical next step. Unfortunately, not all traditional simulation applications are inherently parallel, and quickly adapting mature application codes (even codes designed to parallel applications) to new parallel paradigms can be prohibitively difficult. In general, performance is influenced by many choices: hardware platform, runtime environment, languages and compilers used, algorithm choice and implementation, and more. In this complicated environment, the use of mini-applications small self-contained proxies for real applications is an excellent approach for rapidly exploring the parameter space of all these choices. In this report we present a multi-core performance study of Xyce, a transistor-level circuit simulation tool, and describe the future development of a mini-application for circuit simulation.