Analysis of interconnect networks using complex frequency hopping (CFH)

With increasing miniaturization and operating speeds, loss of signal integrity due to physical interconnects represents a major performance limiting factor of chip-, board- or system-level design. Moment-matching techniques using Pade approximations have recently been applied to simulating modelled interconnect networks that include lossy coupled transmission lines and nonlinear terminations, giving a marked increase in efficiency over traditional simulation techniques. Nevertheless, moment-matching can be inaccurate in high-speed circuits due to critical properties of Pade approximations. Further, moment-generation for transmission line networks can be shown to have increasing numerical truncation error with higher order moments. These inaccuracies are reflected in both the frequency and transient response and there is no criterion for determining the limits of the error. In this paper, a multipoint moment-matching, or complex frequency hopping (CFH) technique is introduced which extracts accurate dominant poles of a linear subnetwork up to any predefined maximum frequency. The method generates a single transfer function for a large linear subnetwork and provides for a CPU/accuracy tradeoff. A new algorithm is also introduced for generating higher-order moments for transmission lines without incurring increasing truncation error. Several interconnect examples are considered which demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency in both the time and frequency domains of the new method