Surface Integral Equation Formulation for Inductance Extraction in 3-D Interconnects

A novel surface integral equation based algorithm is proposed for accurate inductance and resistance extraction in 3-D interconnects. The surface integral equation is obtained by using the skin-effect cross-sectional approximation of the volumetric current density in the traditional volumetric integral equation. The method allows for substantial reduction of computational complexity in the pertinent boundary-element formulation compared with widely adopted volumetric models. For a fixed number of samples per skin-depth establishing a desired accuracy of extraction, the number of degrees of freedom in the proposed discretized problem scales with frequency ?? as O(????), as opposed to O(??) exhibited by the volumetric models. The accuracy of extraction is shown to be maintained from dc to the limit of magneto-quasistatic approximation.