Accurate timing simulation of gallium arsenide circuits

Due to the differing topologies and physics between silicon MOSFET and gallium arsenide MESFET systems, the algorithms previously developed for timing simulation of silicon MOS circuits are ineffective for gallium arsenide MESFET circuits. The authors briefly describe some of these limitations and their impact on simulator development. An algorithm for the efficient timing simulation of large scale GaAs MESFET digital integrated circuits that correctly models the physics is then developed. The approach is shown to be an order of magnitude faster than circuit level simulations but at comparable accuracy. This simulator effectively models the nonlinear voltage dependent junction capacitances for timing analysis purposes and utilizes relaxation based methods to de-couple the system of equations