Introducing circuit and electromagnetic models into system level simulation

A new approach to system simulation, which includes low-level detail at reasonable computing cost is described. Simulation of the electrical behaviour of a complex system, such as a mobile phone or digital TV receiver, is not feasible at the physical level, using available tools. This is even more true if radiated, incident or internal electromagnetic fields are included. Years of computing would be required! Consequently the current approach is to use block simulators employing high-level models. These models are typically implementation-independent, and therefore give incomplete information on how the implemented solution will behave, for example, in the presence of interference, whether internally or externally generated. To begin to overcome these problems, an existing mixed-mode system simulator has been extended with new high-level models which employ parameters extracted from the physical level, using circuit analysis, electromagnetic field analysis or measurement. This extended simulator, ComMix, is fully integrated into an industry-standard CAD framework, and the extraction process has been automated within this environment. Speed of the new models is comparable to typical functional models, but accuracy is comparable to low-level models. This is a major step towards realistic simulation of complete products with low-level detail, including that relevant to EMC. An example from the field of mobile digital communications is used to illustrate ComMix