Full-Wave Field Solvers for Signal Integrity (SI) and EM Interference (EMI) Analysis of Product-level Integrated Circuits (ICs) and Electronics
Signal Integrity Analysis of 3D IBM Plasma Package
The example shown is a real-life IC package benchmark set by IBM at the 15th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Package (EPEP) during a special session on “Parallelization of EM Full-Wave Solvers for Product-Level Problems”. This package includes an eight-layer structure: ground/mounting pads (SURFACE), signal (FC3), ground (FC2), signal (FC1), signal (BC1), power (BC2), signal (BC3), and ground/mounting pads (BASE).
We propose a systematic full-wave numerical approach, based on a nonconformal finite-element domain decomposition method (DDM) for 3-D real-life circuit/package simulations. First, an automatic domain partitioning strategy is utilized to divide the entire model into a number of sub-domains. Each sub-domain is then meshed independently with adaptive mesh refinement. Next, a nonoverlapping DDM is adopted to efficiently solve the finite-element matrix equation. And a model-order reduction technique is exploited to compute the multiport spectral responses. SI effects such as signal delay, coupling, and reflection are simulated on a product-level package benchmark. Finally, numerical results verify the an
F. Guo et al., “The IEEE EPS Packaging Benchmark Suite,” 2021 IEEE 30th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS), Austin, TX, USA, 2021, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/EPEPS51341.2021.9609142.
Y. Shao, Z. Peng and J. -F. Lee, “Full-Wave Real-Life 3-D Package Signal Integrity Analysis Using Nonconformal Domain Decomposition Method,” in IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 230-241, Feb. 2011.
Intrasystem Electromagnetic Interference Analysis of IC and Electronics
Next-generation electronic systems are evolving rapidly to achieve greater functionality and lower cost with smaller sizes. The resulting EMI among different components within a system may significantly affect the in-situ performance of individual components. To accurately characterize the intrasystem EMI, mutual interactions of 3-D interconnects, packages, printed circuit boards (PCBs), and systems must be considered simultaneously. Nevertheless, individual subsystems exhibit vast differences in aspect ratios (the ratio of wavelength to feature size). Computational resources required for the EM field-based modeling of such an extreme multiscale problem are prohibitively expensive.
The objective of this work is to develop high-fidelity and high-performance full-wave solvers for scalable EM simulations of IC and electronics. The emphasis is placed on advancing parallel algorithms that are provably scalable and facilitating a design-through-analysis paradigm for emerging and future electronic systems.
The proposed method follows a hierarchical geometry-based domain partitioning strategy. The electronic system is first divided into case, board, and package subsystems. Each subsystem may be further decomposed into subdomains, where local repetitions and periodicities can be exploited. The domain partitioning between subsystems does not need to be shape-conforming, and the discretizations do not require to be matching. Thus, model preparation and mesh generation can be performed concurrently and are naturally parallelizable.
Subsequently, these subsystems are coupled to one another via the representation formula (distant subsystems) and TCs (adjacent subsystems). A Schwarz iterative process is used to adjust boundary conditions for subsystem problems until the solution converges. It is expected to be a suitable paradigm not only for the high-fidelity system-level simulation that is accurate across the full-scale range, but also for the integration of the state-of-the-art solvers from each subproblem into a powerful solution suite.
