EMX Planar 3D Solver – New Key Features and Updates

The increasing complexity of chip designs that leverage 3D-IC technology, heterogeneous integration, and other manufacturing advancements emphasizes the need for accurate modeling of electromagnetic (EM) crosstalk. EM solvers continue to play a key role in solving larger problems, both in terms of layout size and number of ports.

Cadence's EMX Planar 3D Solver, an electromagnetic (EM) solver for high-frequency and high-speed ICs, provides a unique emphasis on uncompromised accuracy, coupled with capacity, speed, and design flow automation. Integrated with the Cadence Virtuoso platform and Virtuoso Studio, the solver enables designers to accurately model complex layouts down to 2nm while significantly reducing design cycle times.

.

The latest release of the EMX Planar 3D Solver offers increased engine capacity to enable it to address the design complexity of a higher order. View the EMX Planar 3D Solver webinar highlighting the key new features in this latest release, including:

• Net-based meshing that enables designers to select any net and mesh it differently
• White boxing that allows certain simulation ports to be terminated with networks, thereby reducing the overall number of EM ports that go to the EMX Planar 3D Solver
• Enhanced handling of metal fill that smartly approximates the effect of small, lower metal layer fill, thus significantly reducing simulation times and computing resource requirements

Meshing Enhancements

The EMX Planar 3D Solver now offers two meshing enhancements: Voronoi meshing and net-based meshing. Voronoi meshing creates meshes that are refined based on nearby features. The mesh is finer, addressing local features such as bends, slots, crossovers, and proximity. For example, the mesh of a large plane underneath a wire is automatically refined in the wire's vicinity.

Net-based meshing is based on Voronoi meshing, allowing designers to select any net and mesh it differently, crossing multiple layers. It provides additional control over the global edge mesh and per-layer edge mesh, with the per-net mesh setting having the highest priority, followed by the per-layer setting, and finally the global setting. Voronoi and net-based meshing can only be applied to conductors. Vias still utilize the EMX Planar 3D Solver's default approach, and the mesh of an area filled with vias is still the default type.

White-Box Feature

Typical black-boxing leads to excessively large port counts when excluded cells are instantiated as large arrays, such as transistor and amplifier arrays. Excluded cell layouts must be ready and connected.

The EMX Planar 3D Solver's white-box feature enables certain simulation ports to be terminated with networks. The figure below shows white boxed ports in the GUI's grounds field with ports terminated and removed. Ports can be terminated with simple, series RLC models, and the port count and S-parameter matrix size can be reduced. Actual loading of circuit blocks is not required to compute the small-signal response through the network because RLC models for loading blocks are automatically included. Common applications include crosstalk aggressor/victim analysis and supply decoupling.

Fill Approximation and Large Fill Elimination

The EMX Planar 3D Solver now offers new features for improved dummy fill handling. A new option eliminates any floating geometries (no label or pin attached). This is intended to be used for long and thin fill shapes, where one of the dimensions is large (i.e., 1µm×100µm), as opposed to smaller square fill shapes. A new fill approximation function estimates the effect of fill being removed through the fill operator and/or the eliminate-floating option. The approximate-fill operation only approximates the capacitive effect of fill by computing the fill density and making an adjustment to the dielectric constant of the surrounding layers; eddy current effects are not estimated.

Conclusion

Important new features in the EMX Planar 3D Solver enhance usability and productivity by significantly reducing simulation times and computing resource requirements. Net-based meshing enables designers to select any net and mesh it differently, white boxing allows certain simulation ports to be terminated with networks, thereby reducing the overall number of EM ports that go to the EMX Planar 3D Solver for analysis, and enhanced handling of metal fill that smartly approximates the effect of small, lower metal layer fill.

To learn details and see examples, view the EMX Planar 3D Solver webinar now available on demand.