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CAzM: A Circuit Analyzer With Macromodeling
CAzM: A Circuit Analyzer With Macromodeling
Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1983. 180-183, Oct. 1982; also IEEE Trans.Circuits Syst., to be pub-
[52] A. R. Newton, “The simulation of large scale integrated circuits,” lished.
Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of California, Berkeley, July 1978; also [58] M.Guariniand 0. A. Palusinski “Integration of partitioned dy-
Univ. of California, Berkeley, MemoUCB/ERL M78/52, July namic systems using waveform relaxation and modified functional
1978. linearization,” 1983 Summer Computer Simuhtion Proc., July 11-13,
[53] J. Kleckner and A. R. Newton, “Advanced techniques for iterated 1983.
timing analysis,” in preparation. [59] T. Y. Feng, “A survey of interconnection networks,” Comput., no.
[54] D. Senderowicz, “An NMOS integrated vector-locked loop,” Univ. 11, pp. 12-27,1981.
of California, Berkeley, Memo. No. UCB/ERL M82/83, Nov. 12, [60] D. D. Gajski, D. J. Kuck, and D. A. Padua,“Dependence driven
1982. computation,” Proc. IEEE SpringCompcon, pp. 168-172, Feb.
[55] J. White and A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, “RELAX2: A new wave- 1981.
form relaxation approach for the analysis of LSI MOS circuits,” in [61] D. A. Padua, D. J. Kuck, and D. H. Lawrie, “High-speed mul-
Proc 1983 Int. Symp. Circuits Syst., May 1983. tiprocessors and compilation techniques,” IEEE Trans.Comput.,
[56] E. Lelarasmee and A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, “Some new results vol. C-29, no. 9., pp. 763-776, Sept. 1980.
on waveform relaxation algorithms for the simulation of integrated [62] D. H. Lawrie, “Access and alignment of data in an array processor,”
circuits,” in Proc.1982 IEEEInt. Large-ScaleSyst.Symp., pp. IEEE Truns. Comput., vol. C-24, no. 12, pp. 1145-1155, Dec. 1975.
371-376, Oct. 1982. [63] J. T. Deutsch and A. R. Newton, “Data-flow lbased behavioral-level
[57] J. Kaye and A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, “Solution of piecewise simulation and synthesis,” Proc. IEEE ICG4D Con!., Sept. 1983.
linear ordinary differential equations using waveform relaxation and [64] J. T. Deutsch, “Multiprocessorcomputer architecture,” Worcester
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Abstract -A prototype circuit simulator, based on a revised formulation perform the specified logical function. Circuit analysis is
of the circuit equations, is described. The formulation is basedon func-
often subdivided into three phases called circuit, timing,
tional models of active elements, which can be derived from either equiva-
lent-circuit or black-box models. The implementation is oriented towards and logic simulations; a number of simulation programs
the simulation of digital MOS circuits and takes advantage of the special based on various formulations and algorithms are in use
form of suchcircuits. Some oftheimplementation issues are discussed, ~91.
particularly the hierarchical structuringof the circuit equationsand the use The logic phase simulates the binary behavior of the
of splines to facilitate macromodeling; continuation methods for computing
circuit at the transistor or gate level. Timing simulation
transfercurvesare also discussed.Finally,theresults of computational
experiments are presented. attemptsto analyze the various de1a:ys in the circuit’s
critical paths without solving the differential equations to
I. INTRODUCTION great accuracy. Circuit simulation solves the differential
system accurately enough to predict detailed electrical
D IGITAL integrated circuits may be viewed as a col-
lection of transistor devices interconnected topologi-
cally on asubstrate silicon chip. Although the circuit is
properties.
Circuit analysis provides several interesting numerical
designed to perform two-valued logical functions, the de- problems. This paper tersely describes some of the numeri-
tailed electrical behavior of the individual devices, and cal procedures incorporated in CAzM, a prototype circuit
therefore the circuit itself, is analog. That is, the basic simulator under development. Section I1 focuses primarily
physics describing the devices and the circuit behavior is on the formulation of the circuit equations with special
modeled by differential equations. emphasis on MOS transistor circuits. Since the transient
The task of circuit analysis is to solve these differential aspects of the simulation reduce numerically to solving a
equations accurately enough to predict the circuit’s dy- sequence of static operating-point prob’lems, the formula-
namic analog behavior [3], [13]. This insures that the de- tion of the static case is given. We briefly discuss in Section
vices and interconnections will function as required to I11 a damped-Newton method that has proven effective in
simulation. Continuation methods for computing static
transfer curves are explained in Section IV. Section V
Manuscript received January 4, 1983; revised March 21, 1983.
The authors are with the ComputingMathematics Research Depart- contains a briefoverview of variation-diminishing tensor
ment, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974. splines, which we use for functional models of transistors
0018-9383/83/0900-1207$01.00 01983 IEEE
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1208 IEEE TRANSACTIONS O N ELECTRON DEVICES, NO.
VOL. ED-30, 9, SEPTEMBER 1983
"=[A
K~ K , A ~
0
We call M , the reduced-tableau matrix.
I. to n , is the reference. Note that the reference terminal need
not be grounded and the reference terminal of one transis-
tor need not be connected to the reference terminal of
another attached transistor. There is a current and voltage
In the tableau approach, the linear system involving .M0
associated with each terminal. However, Kirchhoff's cur-
issolved bya general sparse solver that recognizestile
rent law insures that Cij = 0 so only three currents need
special ( - 1,0,1) entries in A but otherwise takes litlle
enter into the constitutive relation for T,. Similar consider-
account of the nature of the circuit. The "elimination
ations dictate the dependence of the constitutive relation
order" is determined by heuristics that attempt to optimize
upon the terminal voltages; u2 - u,, u3 - u 2 , and u4 - u1
the arithmetic and memory costs of the equation solution;
are the relevantdifferences of node voltages. Thus the
these heuristics may not preserve the "locality" of the
general constitutive relation for T, takes the form
circuit equations.
Most formulations of the network equations can be f(i,, i,, i,, u2 - u l , u g- u,, u4 - u,) = 0 .
derived by starting with the tableau matrix, or the reduccd The part of the reduced incidence matrix associated with
form, and performing various block LU factorizations [dl],
[5]. In particular, the nodal and modified-nodal[ l l ] forrnl-
lations can be obtainedin this way. Moreover, the formula-
tion can be extended to allow state variables. The circuit
equations have hierarchical character, reflecting the u r t -
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COUGHRAN et ai.: CAZM: A CIRCUIT ANALYZER WITH MACROMODELING 1209
+INTERNAL NODE n
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1210 IEEE TRANSACTIONSON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. ED-30, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 1983
The Newton step for such a problem is found by solvi.xg differential equations
the Jacobian equations
guu’ + A%, =0
JkXk = - gk
where Jk = g,( uk) = ag( u k ) / d u and gk = g( uk).The nC:Xt
l\u’\\$ + \x12=1.
iterate is taken as The differential equations can be viewed as an initial-value
problem if the operating-point problem g ( u , A,) = 0 is
U k + l = uk + tkxk solved first.
where 0 < tk ,<1is chosen to satisfy the sufficient decrease Suppose we know the solution ( u j , A j ) and its tangent
condition (u;, X j ) for some sj and now wish to advance from sj to
This can be done by making the nonlinear equations
g ( u j + lA, j + l ) = 0 and the pseudo arc-length equation
-
f o r j = 1, .,I until the decrease condition is satisfied; 1’ is a
given integer, which we usually take as nine. This sch.c:me should be solved by the following steps:
decreases the step slowly for small j but then quic.kly 1) Solve g u y = gh and g,z = r ;
reduces it for largerj. 2 ) SA = ( t - U j ‘ Z > / ( X j - ujTy);
This algorithm with this method of picking tk is globdly 3) S u = z - S A y .
convergent if g satisfies certain technical assumptions (:see
[l]for details); we are investigating these assumption,$ in Note that gu may be ill-conditioned for some A)’s.
the circuit context. Since portions of a circuit may be Once ( u ~ +A~j +,l ) is known, we mustcompute
“off”, isolated rows and columns of the Jacobian mag be A)+l) in order to take another step in s. This can be
zero as well as the corresponding components of gk; defla- done using they = g;lgh computed above and forming
tion of these singular systems suffices to compute xk jn a
bounded way. A’= f Ilyll;
u’ = A‘y
Iv. CONTINUATION FOR STATIC TRANSFER where the sign of A’ is chosen in the appropriate way.
ANALYSIS The means of selecting Asj obviously influences the
We are interested in solving the transfer analysis prob- efficiency of the overall procedure. We find that a modifi-
lem given by cation of algorithm I11 in [ l o ] iseasy to implement and
effective; its main advantage is that no quality measure for
g(u,A)=OforXE[A,,A.]. the corrector iterates need be computed. For brevity, we
In other words, we are interested in finding u ( A ) for a will defer a detailed discussion of the steplength algorithm
range of input voltages A, < A G A,. We have found con- and computational results to a later paper.
tinuation techniques attractive for computing transfer With many circuits, it is possible to enforce only
curves. g(ui+l, = 0 at each point and use an initial guess
Parametrize the system by arc-length based on the forward-Euler equation. (Essentially, any
circuit where a particular value of A gives a unique u can be
g ( u ( s > ,A(sN = 0 treated in this way.) This saves an extra solvefor each
and then differentiate to obtaina system of ordinary Newton iteration. This is an option in CAzM.
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COUGHRAN et a[.: CAZM: A CIRCUIT ANALYZER WlTH MACROMODELING 1211
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1212 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. ED-30, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 1983
0.2:
u1=5
u2 = 4
i UI=:
-a
-a
.--
E C
E UI’O
.-
-0.2!
I 5
0
OUT ( V O L T S )
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COUGHRAN et al.: CAZM: A CIRCUIT ANALYZER WITH MACROMODELING 1213
TABLE I1
-+Y I
OUT
Bits
1
1
Work for full adders with switch-simulator guess
Transistors Unknowns Newtons
27
27
18
9
7+15
4 4
Macromodel?
u 4 - 108 36 4 4
216 8 72 4 4
CIN -I 16 432 144 4 4 Yes
Fig. 6. One-bit full adder circuit. 32 288 864 4 4. Yes
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