A comparison of the performance of finite difference time-domain, finite element time-domain, and discrete surface integral equation methods on high performance parallel computers

Volume based time-domain methods have played a pronounced role in the modeling of the interaction of electromagnetic waves within complex media. Currently a number of highly robust and computationally efficient techniques are in use. Those of interest to this paper are the finite difference time-domain (FDTD) method, the finite element time-domain (FETD) method, and the discrete surface integral equation (DSI) method. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparison of the performance of the FDTD, FETD, and DSI techniques on high performance distributed memory parallel computers. Efficient parallel algorithms for each method based on spatial (domain) decomposition techniques is presented. The comparison of the techniques is based on: computational efficiency, memory requirements, accuracy, and scalability on parallel computers. To this end, a number of numerical examples based on the analysis of printed microwave circuits and antennas are presented.<>