Surface-based broadband electromagnetic-circuit simulation of lossy conductors

Abstract

Surface-only boundary-element formulations are particularly efficient for electromagnetic modelling of microelectronic structures that consist of homogeneous sections, such as interconnects, packaged and on-chip microwave and analogue circuit components. However, broadband modelling, as necessitated in digital and ultrawideband systems, is not possible with standard surface-only formulations that rely on the surface impedance technique to model conductor loss. In existing methods, recourse is taken to volumetric solvers in such cases. A surface-only formulation is presented that is truly broadband, and solves the internal field problem exactly, utilising a newly developed lossy medium quadrature. The value of the proposed technique lies in its seamless behaviour over wide frequency ranges and its direct interconnectivity to circuit-level analyses. In particular, frequency-dependent parameters can be extracted via a surface-only approach, valid at all frequencies. The electromagnetic analysis is coupled to a lumped circuit formulation, via a recently developed contact model.