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Title: Performance of a parallel algebraic multilevel preconditioner for stabilized finite element semiconductor device modeling

Journal Article · · Journal of Computational Physics
 [1];  [2];  [3]; ;  [1]
  1. Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800 MS 0316, Albuquerque, NM 87185-0316 (United States)
  2. BMW-Sauber, Hinwil (Switzerland)
  3. Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 969 MS 9159, Livermore, CA 94551-9159 (United States)

In this study results are presented for the large-scale parallel performance of an algebraic multilevel preconditioner for solution of the drift-diffusion model for semiconductor devices. The preconditioner is the key numerical procedure determining the robustness, efficiency and scalability of the fully-coupled Newton-Krylov based, nonlinear solution method that is employed for this system of equations. The coupled system is comprised of a source term dominated Poisson equation for the electric potential, and two convection-diffusion-reaction type equations for the electron and hole concentration. The governing PDEs are discretized in space by a stabilized finite element method. Solution of the discrete system is obtained through a fully-implicit time integrator, a fully-coupled Newton-based nonlinear solver, and a restarted GMRES Krylov linear system solver. The algebraic multilevel preconditioner is based on an aggressive coarsening graph partitioning of the nonzero block structure of the Jacobian matrix. Representative performance results are presented for various choices of multigrid V-cycles and W-cycles and parameter variations for smoothers based on incomplete factorizations. Parallel scalability results are presented for solution of up to 10{sup 8} unknowns on 4096 processors of a Cray XT3/4 and an IBM POWER eServer system.

OSTI ID:
21308110
Journal Information:
Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 228, Issue 17; Other Information: DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2009.05.024; PII: S0021-9991(09)00273-3; Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9991
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English