Applications of Multilinear and Waveform Relaxation Methods for Efficient Simulation of Interconnect-Dominated Nonlinear Networks

Abstract

Applications of multilinear and waveform relaxation methods are presented for efficient transient analysis of interconnect-dominated nonlinear networks. In this paper, two procedures that realize these well-known and fundamental theories in conventional circuit simulation tools are developed by taking advantage of the unique characteristics of interconnect networks. The multilinear theory uses the Volterra functional series to decompose the nonlinear network into multiple linear networks. Then, the solutions of the mildly nonlinear network are obtained from the linear combinations of sequences of responses of the decomposed linear networks. On the other hand, the waveform relaxation technique is used to solve networks with strong nonlinearity. The networks are partitioned into linear and nonlinear subnetworks and each subnetwork is solved iteratively using the waveform relaxation technique. Simplified analysis steps that give good insight into these techniques are also derived analytically. Finally, the accuracy and efficiency of the methods are verified with two examples.