The two-level Newton method and its application to electronic simulation.

Conference · Tue Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 2004

OSTI ID:957263

Hoekstra, Robert John; Waters, Lon J; Rankin, Eric Lamont; Hutchinson, Scott Alan; Keiter, Eric Richard; Russo, Thomas V

Coupling between transient simulation codes of different fidelity can often be performed at the nonlinear solver level, if the time scales of the two codes are similar. A good example is electrical mixed-mode simulation, in which an analog circuit simulator is coupled to a PDE-based semiconductor device simulator. Semiconductor simulation problems, such as single-event upset (SEU), often require the fidelity of a mesh-based device simulator but are only meaningful when dynamically coupled with an external circuit. For such problems a mixed-level simulator is desirable, but the two types of simulation generally have different (somewhat conflicting) numerical requirements. To address these considerations, we have investigated variations of the two-level Newton algorithm, which preserves tight coupling between the circuit and the PDE device, while optimizing the numerics for both. The research was done within Xyce, a massively parallel electronic simulator under development at Sandia National Laboratories.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Laboratories
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 957263
• Report Number(s): SAND2004-3181C
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
ALGORITHMS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PARALLEL PROCESSING
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SIMULATORS
X CODES