Stochastic Simulation of Integrated Circuits with Nonlinear Black-Box Components via Augmented Deterministic Equivalents

Abstract

This paper extends recent literature results concerning the statistical simulation of circuits affected by random electrical parameters by means of the polynomial chaos framework. With respect to previous implementations, based on the generation and simulation of augmented and deterministic circuit equivalents, the modeling is extended to generic and ?black-box? multi-terminal nonlinear subcircuits describing complex devices, like those found in integrated circuits. Moreover, based on recently-published works in this field, a more effective approach to generate the deterministic circuit equivalents is implemented, thus yielding more compact and efficient models for nonlinear components. The approach is fully compatible with commercial (e.g., SPICE-type) circuit simulators and is thoroughly validated through the statistical analysis of a realistic interconnect structure with a 16-bit memory chip. The accuracy and the comparison against previous approaches are also carefully established.

Keywords

• circuit simulation
• integrated circuits
• nonlinear circuits
• SPICE
• statistical analysis