Simulating the electrical behavior of integrated circuit devices in the presence of thermal interactions

This paper describes a cosimulation methodology for modeling the electrical behavior of integrated circuit devices in the presence of thermal interactions. The methodology consists of linking a custom finite-volume thermal simulator to a commercially available electrical simulator (Saber, Synopsys, Inc.). Specifically, this paper delineates the techniques developed to resolve the time- and length-scale issues associated with this type of cosimulation that, if left unresolved, typically lead to poor computational performance. These problems, their solutions, and their implementation into the thermal simulator are exposed in detail.