On the integration of behavioral component descriptions in the full-wave transmission-line modeling method

Abstract

The simulation of complex digital systems incorporating ICs, lumped components, and fleld phenomena is a necessary activity for many applications. Predicting the practical be- havior of systems based upon just the schematical circuit diagrams (which indicate topology) fails to include the consequences of fleld efiects (which require geometrical information), which given the ever increasing frequencies of modern digital systems, are of paramount importance. On the other hand, comprehensive simulation of IC packages using full-wave models is prohibitively com- putationally expensive and time consuming to complete. Embedding behavioral level descriptions of complex electronic components within a full-wave fleld solver circumvents these problems, and forms the subject of this paper. The Transmission-Line Modeling (TLM) method is used as the full-wave solver, and two behavioral models, \macro and \IBIS, are embedded into the TLM to model the sources and loads presented by complex ICs. The two methods of representing the IC behavior are then illustrated and compared with a canonical test structure.