Electromagnetic Simulation for Electronic Systems
Dr. Raúl Camposano, CEO, Nimbic Inc.
The use of electromagnetic simulation of electronic systems for
package-board systems is increasing, principally because of higher
speeds (GHz range) and the adoption of advanced technologies,
often referred to as 3DIC.
The Need for Electromagnetic Simulation
Packages and boards are playing an increasing role as a way to
increase speed and density, while reducing power and form factor
of electronic systems. This is part of a trend called sometimes "more
than Moore", to refer to factors in addition to scaling ICs. Packages
and boards both represent sizeable industries, even compared to
the $300 billion semiconductor industry. Packaging is estimated
to be an approximately $24 billion industry1, while boards are
estimated at approximately $60 billion of yearly revenue2. This paper
focuses on the simulation of the package-board system, which is
becoming increasingly more complex and often requires solving the
electromagnetic fields.
Electromagnetic simulation consists in solving Maxwell's
equations to calculate the electric and magnetic fields. In electronic
systems, electromagnetic simulation is used to characterize the
behavior of interconnect accurately. Stated in a simplified way,
this becomes necessary when a signal travels a distance comparable
to its wavelength and needs to be modeled as a wave. In practice,
electromagnetic simulation is used for "fast" packages and boards,
and less frequently for dies because they are smaller. For example,
at 1GHz, the wavelength in air (very similar to vacuum) is 30cm
or about one foot, so signals that travel several centimeters require
electromagnetic simulation; packages and boards exhibit these
dimensions.
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Virtual Fabrication Allows Process Development to Keep Pace
David Fried, CTO, Coventor, Inc.
It is difficult to imagine what the world of IC design would be like
without tools that allow engineers to model, simulate, optimize
and "virtually" replicate the millions of gates and transistors that
comprise a modern chip. Indeed, it would be literally impossible
to design these types of devices without sophisticated automation
tools, higher-level abstraction methodologies and extremely accurate
simulation, modeling and checking technologies.
To manage ever-increasing complexity, the electronic design
automation (EDA) infrastructure has evolved into a highly organized
hierarchy. At the lowest level of abstraction, compact models and
SPICE serve circuit designers with analytical tools to design small
circuits with high precision. At higher levels of abstraction, VHDL,
Verilog and synthesis tools allow larger more complex designs to be
assembled in virtual space. Routing tools allow massive monolithic
products to be wired and analyzed virtually, while essentially ignoring
the details of lower levels of this hierarchy. With this advanced EDA
infrastructure in place, the design community is now creating massive
multi-core processors with embedded memories and advanced I/O
capabilities.
While the IC design challenge has been – and continues to be
– addressed by automated approaches the question now becomes:
what about the underlying physical processes that are meant to be
the target for such complex ICs – the manufacturing platforms that
are the key to enabling the continuation of Moore's Law, not to
mention opening the door for More than Moore? The development
approaches for manufacturing processes as they have rapidly scaled
from 90nm to 65nm to 45nm – and are headed for unfathomable
10nm and 7nm nodes – have hardly kept pace with the methods
used for the very designs that they are meant to produce.
