An efficient algorithm for finding all solutions of piecewise-linear resistive circuits

An efficient algorithm is presented for finding all solutions of piecewise-linear resistive circuits. First, a technique is proposed which substantially reduces the number of function evaluations needed in the piecewise-linear modeling process. Then a simple and very efficient sign test is proposed which remarkably reduces the number of linear simultaneous equations to be solved for finding all solutions. An effective technique is also introduced which makes the sign test more efficient. All of the techniques exploit the separability of nonlinear mappings. Some numerical examples are given, in which all solutions are computed very rapidly. The algorithm is simple, efficient, and can be easily programmed