An evolutionary method for efcient computation of mutual

capacitance for VLSI circuits based on the method of images

Yiorgos I. Bontzios
a
, Michael G. Dimopoulos
b,
, Alkis A. Hatzopoulos
a
a
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Eng., Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece
b
Dept. of Electronics, Alexander Technological Educational Inst. of Thessaloniki, P.O. Box 141, Thessaloniki 57400, Greece
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 24 July 2010
Received in revised form 2 October 2010
Accepted 6 October 2010
Available online 11 October 2010
Keywords:
Capacitance
Capacitance modeling
Genetic algorithms
Charges
Mixed analogdigital integrated circuits
VLSI circuits
Method of images
a b s t r a c t
The problem of computing the capacitance coupling in Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI)
circuits is studied in this work. The proposed method is an approximate extended version
of the method of images. The initial problem is formulated here as an optimization prob-
lem for the solution of which a genetic algorithm (GA) is employed. The proposed method
is fast, general, does not rely on tting techniques and is applicable to an arbitrary 2D or 3D
geometry conguration of conductors. Extensive simulation results are presented for sev-
eral practical case studies. Comparative results are given with other methods from litera-
ture and a commercial tool employing the Finite Element Method (FEM). The results show
that the capacitance value computed by our method is in close agreement to the value
obtained by the other methods from literature and also by the commercial tool with the
average difference ranging between 2% and 5% while demonstrating better scalability as
the problem complexity rises.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Modeling and prediction of the noise coupling is an important design consideration in modern mixed signal ICs. Errone-
ous estimation of the coupling may lead, for example, to degradation on the performance of an analog amplier or to the
propagation of noise from one block to another. For this reason, the correct prediction of the coupling during the IC design
phase is imperative.
Three types of noise coupling are recognized in VLSI circuits; resistive, capacitive and inductive. The latter is a signicant issue
in special cases, where for example bonding wires or inductors are present. On the other hand, the resistive and mainly capacitive
coupling should be always considered. The continuous scaling of the CMOS technologies, which in effect brings metallization at
closer distances, makes the correct capacitive coupling computation and prediction in modern technologies critical.
Many techniques for calculating the capacitive coupling have been proposed in literature. The most common ones are the
FEM and BEM methods [13]. In these methods, the space is discretized into a nite number of cells. The problem is then
solved using standard numerical integration techniques. Although general methods, they suffer from increased memory
requirements and simulation time and in some complex problems they totally fail to converge. While the simulation time
may not be considered as a signicant problem in research, it turns out to be prohibitive for the design process.
One other major approach is the modeling of the capacitance coupling with a small number of lumped capacitances
[410]. In these methods every type of problem is rst semi-explicitly solved, using mostly conformal mapping techniques
and by imposing parameters the values of which are computed by tting techniques, resulting in semi-empirical formulas.
The main drawback of this approach is that its range of validity is limited to the specic type of problem solved.
1569-190X/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.simpat.2010.10.002

Corresponding author. Tel.: +30 6972645452.

E-mail addresses: gmpontzi@auth.gr (Y.I. Bontzios), mdimop@ieee.org (M.G. Dimopoulos), alkis@eng.auth.gr (A.A. Hatzopoulos).
Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ si mpat
In this work, in order to overcome the limitations of the above methods, the capacitive coupling is modeled as an opti-
mization problem for the solution of which several methods may be applied. Here, an evolutionary GA-based method is pur-
sued. The proposed method is an approximate extended version of the well known method of images in electromagnetism
[11]. A set of charges is used in every case to produce the equipotential surface (ISO) of the conductor. If the geometry is 2D,
e.g. interconnect lines, then the charges are linear (LC), while for 3D geometries point charges (PC) are utilized. For the opti-
mal placement of the charges a genetic algorithm (GA) is used.
In the following, the problemof capacitance computation and its formulation in this work is briey explained in Section 2.
The encoding of the original problem to a form suitable for the proposed GA algorithm to solve is described in Section 3. The
proposed GA algorithm is presented in Section 4. Simulation results for various test cases are presented in Section 5. Discus-
sions and directions for further work in Section 6 are concluding the paper.
2. Problem formulation
The main idea of the proposed method is based on the method of images [11]. This method arises from a fundamental
theorem of electromagnetism which states that the electromagnetic eld in a region of space remains the same as long
as both the sources and the boundary conditions do not change. By exploiting this theorem, a number of conductors may
be substituted by a set of charges properly placed, in order one of the ISOs produced to match the outer (boundary) surface
of each conductor. Then the conductors can be removed and the initial problem is translated to a problem of charges which
can almost always be explicitly solved. The EM eld remains the same only inside the free of charges region. This is by no
means a limitation since in most cases we are interested in the other complementary region.
Unfortunately, very few geometries satisfy the necessary conditions to be solved with this method. Typically, this means a
great symmetry like a sphere or a geometry with innite dimension(s) (innite plane, innite cylinder, etc.). Two simple
examples of the method of images are illustrated in Fig. 1. Specically, Fig. 1a shows the problem of a charge (point or linear)
above an innite (conductive) plane and in Fig. 1b the problem of a point charge outside a grounded sphere is depicted.
Except for some special cases, where innite dimension(s) may be assumed, most of the practical cases do not fall within
this category. Typical structures of the modern technologies correspond to the geometries of the cube or the orthogonal par-
allelepiped with nite dimensions. In these geometries the method of images fails to provide an explicit solution.
In this work, an approximate extended version of the method of images is introduced to deal with geometries where the
classical method of images is not applicable. Initially, several geometries have been studied by means of simulation and the
effect of the particular shapes to the nal capacitance value has been investigated. The outcome of this study is that similar
geometries result in almost equal capacitance values. This fact is exploited by the proposed method. For example, the cal-
culated capacitance between the two cubes in Fig. 2a differs slightly, about 1%, from the capacitance between the shapes
in Fig. 2b, where the side of one of the cubes is now curved. In practical cases estimation with error below 5% sufces.
Further simulations have been performed to identify proper placement of sets of charges in order to replace every given
conductor. An example is presented in Fig. 3, where the produced ISOs from two different sets of equal LCs are illustrated.
The ISOs caused by a pair of charges are ellipsoids. This is more suitable for simulating a conductor surface with rectangular
cross section. On the other hand, a symmetric quadruple of LCs creates ISOs, which near the LC resemble the surface of a
square-cross-section conductor.
3. Encoding of the problem
Before describing the proposed GA-based method, the procedure for properly encoding the original problem to an appro-
priate form for the genetic algorithm will be outlined.
Fig. 1. Method of images for (a) a charge above innite conductive plane and (b) a charge outside a grounded sphere.
Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648 639
Initially, the space is discretized to a nite number of cells. The resulted discretized space is called the mesh and the num-
ber of cells the mesh density. The current version of the proposed method supports only uniform meshes, but it can be easily
extended to support non uniformmeshes as well. The latter is expected to increase the simulation speed of the method, since
for a given geometry and a given required accuracy it would result to fewer cells.
Secondly, for each one of the given conductors, a set of M points SP along its surface is selected. The SP are selected so to
better track the given conductor surface. The SP for the 2D case of a square and the 3D case of a cube are given in Fig. 4a
and b respectively. Structures with complex geometries will require more points. Similarly, more points would be required
for sharp surfaces, e.g. the conductor corners, and to the nearest side faces of the coupled conductors. The overall number M
of SP can be kept small by selecting an increased number of SP at these regions only and a lower number to the rest of the
conductor surface. Simulations show that a number of M = 16 and M = 48 points, with the arrangement shown in the Fig. 4a
and b, respectively, is sufcient for tracking the given shapes.
Fig. 2. Mutual capacitance between shapes that geometrically differ slightly is practical the same. The capacitance between two cubes for example
(a) changes by less than 1% if one of the cubes is deformed as in (b).
Fig. 3. Cross section of the equipotential surfaces produced by: (a) two equal linear charges and (b) four equal line charges.
640 Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648
Next, a set of N charges is placed inside every conductor structure. Each charge is placed in one cell and each cell can be
occupied by one and only one charge. The value of each charge is normalized to {1, +1}Cb. This improves the speed of sim-
ulation since the value of the charge is not a parameter of the algorithm. Any charge distribution can be approximated with
these normalized values by increasing the mesh density and placing more charges in the region where the distribution is
higher.
The potential at each SP, caused by all of the charges, is computed next according to the following equations:
u
3D

M
j1
q
pj
4per
2
ij
1
u
2D

M
j1
k
qj
2pe
ln
q
j
q
0j
_ _
2
where q
p
and k
q
are the values of the point and the linear charge respectively, r the radial distance from the point charge to
the point of interest, q and q
0
the distance in cylindrical coordinates of the linear charge to the point of interest and to the
reference point of the potentials respectively, and e the permittivity of the medium.
The main requirement for all the SP is to belong to the same ISO which is translated to have the same potential value. To
follow this requirement the RMS metric is introduced. The RMS
j
value for the jth conductor is computed by the following
equation:
RMS
j

1
M

M
i1
Du
i

2
_
_ _
3
where Du
i
u
i
u
k
and u
k

1
M

M
i1
u
i
. Here, u
i
denotes the potential at the i SP of the jth conductor for either case 3D or
2D. In a k-multiconductor system the overall RMS is taken as the maximum of RMS
j
, i.e. RMS = max[RMS
j
], j = 1, . . . , k.
The nal capacitance value is computed by its denition formula:
C
Q
tot
u
1
u
2
4
where Q
tot
is the total net charge inside the conductor and u
1
u
2
is the potential difference between the two conductors.
4. The proposed ga-based method
Before applying the GA, several simple cases have been solved explicitly by employing exhaustive search. These results
are used for validation of the GA. The tness value of the exhaustive search denes the optimal value that can be achieved by
the method. The optimal placement found by the exhaustive search (the Exhaustive Search Solution ESS) is used as initial
condition to the corresponding GA problem since it is expected, that similar problems exhibit similar corresponding charge
placements. By this way, the GA population is built around the optimal value, which implies that will converge faster to the
solution.
The proposed GA-based method consists of the following steps:
Fig. 4. The set of the selected surface points along the surface of (a) a square and (b) a cube.
Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648 641
Step 1. Randomly construct the initial population of members or individuals [12]. Each individual corresponds to a fea-
sible solution. The initial population consists of two equal in number parts. The rst half is completely randomly gener-
ated using a uniform distribution. The other half is constructed around the ESS of the corresponding problem, using a
Gaussian distribution centered on the ESS.
Step 2. The tness value for each individual is computed.
Step 3. Population is sorted in order to nd the individual with the minimum tness value.
Step 4. The selection method is applied. The individuals are copied into the mating pool according to their tness value
(roulette wheel selection), and they are randomly combined [12].
Step 5. The offsprings are generated and the genetic operators are applied to each offspring in the new population with a
specic probability.
Step 6. The initial population is replaced by the new population and Steps 26 are repeated until the termination criteria
are met: either the tness value to become smaller than a user-dened tolerance limit or for the algorithm to exceed the
limit of iterations (GA generations) set by the user.
4.1. Chromosome encoding
The chromosome is dened as a matrix of K vectors of size N
j
with N
j
being the number of the charges used in each con-
ductor. Each of the K vectors corresponds to a particular conductor. Each vector element (gene) of the chromosome is a trip-
let (xloc, yloc, cg_val) for the 2D problem and a quadruplet (xloc, yloc, zloc, cg_val) for the 3D problem, where xloc, yloc, zloc
are the coordinates of the charge, measured in number of cells, that dene its location in the Cartesian system of coordinates
and cg_val is the normalized charge value {1, +1}. Since the given conductors constitute a closed system, the net charge
should equal to zero. For this reason, and to speed-up the computation, the charge values are randomly picked from a set
of K

K
j1
N
j
size matrix. Half of its elements contain the value +1 and the rest the value 1, so as its sum to equal to zero.
4.2. Fitness function
The individuals are ranked according to certain evaluation rules, which form the so-called tness function. The tness
function used in this method is given by the following relation:
f RMS
Du
i
u
k

S
pen
V
thres
5
In Eq. (5) V
thres
> 0 is a threshold factor which denes the maximum allowable percentage variance of the potential of each
SP
i
from its normalized potential difference
Du
i
u
k
. Typically, it is set to a value of 510%. A penalty S
pen
> 0 is imposed to any
SP
i
, whose potential value exceeds the above boundaries. This allows for a better renement in the search of the best indi-
vidual. A typical value for S
pen
is [2RMS, 2.5RMS].
4.3. Mutation operators
Five different mutation operators are used in this method. All the mutation operators follow the uniform distribution. The
probability values have been chosen so as to set the impact of each mutation operator accordingly. A greater probability va-
lue implies that the respective operator acts on more individuals. The specic values were obtained after studying several
simple cases.
Single mutation: A random cell from the unoccupied ones is selected as the candidate place for a randomly selected charge
to be placed into. The probability of this mutation operator is set to 0.5.
Double mutation: Two charges are randomly chosen and relocated to random unoccupied cells. The probability of this
mutation operator is set to 0.4.
Part mutation: A vector (a subset) of charges is randomly selected and relocated to randomly selected unoccupied cells.
The probability of this mutation operator is set to 0.3.
Neighbour mutation: A random cell from the occupied ones is selected and its charge is relocated to a random side cell. For
example, if the occupied cell coordinates are (x
1
, y
1
, z
1
) then the coordinates of the new random side cell would be (x
1
+ a
1
,
y
1
+ a
2
, z
1
+ a
3
), where a
1
, a
2
, a
3
2 {1, 1} are a randomly chosen values. This mutation operator is activated if the tness va-
lue remains within a specied tolerance limit for three consecutive generations. The tolerance limit is set to 5%.
Charge mutation: A vector (a subset) of charges is randomly selected and their values are inversed, i.e. multiplied by 1.
This mutation operator is not active from the beginning but it is activated if the tness value remains within a specic tol-
erance limit for ve consecutive generations. The tolerance limit is set to 8%.
In the mutation process the symmetry of every problem is exploited to bring the mutated individual closer to the global
minimum. Specically, if a problem is characterized by a particular symmetry, the arrangement of the charges is character-
ized by the same symmetry, which is supported both by theory and simulations. For example, a pair of conductors is always
symmetric about the point in the middle of the distance along their centers. Therefore, in every symmetric system of con-
642 Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648
ductors, the locations of the charges of one conductor are mutated and the charges of the other conductors are placed in the
corresponding symmetric positions.
5. Simulation results
The proposed algorithm has been implemented in C++ and has been applied on several test cases. All the test cases cor-
respond to typical structures and arrangements of interconnects encountered in practice. The results have been compared to
the simulation data obtained by a commercial simulator [13] based on the FEM method. Since both the capacitive coupling
problem and our method are scalable in general, the results do not depend on absolute values but rather to relative ones. For
this reason the results are presented in normalized units. All the simulations have been carried out on a Linux platform on a
AMD Athlon64 4000+ machine with 2 GB RAM.
As it was discussed in Section 4 several simple cases are rst solved by exhaustive search. The required time for exhaus-
tively searching even for a geometry of a modest complexity is prohibitive, requiring for N charges and G generations
N
G
_ _
computations for each conductor structure. For example, for a mesh density of 10 and number of charges N = 8, the required
computations for the 2D (3D) problem and for each conductor are
12
2
8
_ _
12
3
8
for the 3D case
_ _ _ _
far exceeding the 10
9
(10
15
for the 3D case). The typical total run time for such a problem is of the order of days. For this reason, only very simple
cases were studied. However, useful conclusions have been drawn by these cases, since they exhibit a convergent behavior.
In particular, increasing the mesh density the locations of the charges converge to specic cells. For example, for the simple
2D problem, shown in Fig. 5a, consisting of a single innite conductor of square cross section using a set of 4 LCs, the latter
tend to occupy the four corner cells. A coupled pair constituting by the above conductors is shown in Fig. 5b. Here, the
charges tend to occupy the cells close to the nearest coupled faces.
The complexity of the proposed algorithm is O(NMGP) where N is the number of charges (length of chromosome), M the
number of points per structure (conductor), G the number of generations of the GA and P the population size, i.e. number of
individuals. The typical ranges of the above parameters for converging to the result are found to be: 4 < N < 8, 12 < M < 24,
5 < G < 20, 300 < P < 600 for the 2D case and 10 < N < 16, 36 < M < 60, 5 < G < 30, 300 < P < 600 for the 3D. This implies that an
average run would require less than 600 10
3
computations for both 2D and 3D cases which correspond to a processing
time of less than a few seconds for a typical modern single-processor PC.
Although the complexity of the algorithm is independent of the mesh density, the latter affects the overall performance of
the algorithm since it is proportional to the search space. A denser mesh implies more available cells that can be occupied by
the set of charges and in effect more feasible solutions of the problem that should be searched. For this reason, the effect of
the mesh density in terms of the number of charges to the algorithms performance has been studied. Fig. 6 shows the behav-
ior of the proposed method with respect to the mesh density (expressed in number of cells per dimension) for the case of a
pair of coupled cubes. The behavior for other cases is similar. Six different sets of PCs have been examined each one consist-
ing of a different number of charges. It turns out that a set of 6 or 8 charges is insufcient for reproducing the given geom-
etry. The algorithm for a number of charges equal to 12 or more exhibits approximately the same behavior. As it can be seen,
the method converges exponentially to the nal capacitance when the number of cells is 12 or more which implies that the
mesh density may be kept low thus resulting in faster computation times. Therefore, from this pre-processing procedure the
number of charges and the adequate value for mesh density are computed and this prior acquired knowledge is exploited
later onto the GA Simulation in order to have a good initial placement for the number of charges.
Fig. 5. Occupied cells by the charges in conductors with square cross section. The charges tend to occupy (a) the four corner cells in a single conductor and
(b) the cells around the nearest coupled faces in a pair of conductors conguration.
Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648 643
Table 1 summarizes the performance of the proposed method in terms of average simulation time in comparison with the
FEM method. As it can be seen, for simple geometries the performance is the same. However, the simulation time of the FEM
increases rapidly as the geometry becomes more complex and particularly as the ratio between largest and smallest dimen-
sions increases. It must be noted though, that the total time is quite larger for the FEM, since the time required to setup the
simulation is signicantly larger in comparison to the proposed method, mainly due to the necessary denition of the
boundary conditions.
5.1. Capacitance of an isolated cube
The analytic solution of the problem of the capacitance of an isolated cube is yet to be found [1423]. Several approaches
have been applied for numerically solving the problem resulting either at a xed value or at an upper and a lower boundary.
The capacitance of the isolated unit cube has been also computed by the proposed method. A set of N = 100 PCs are utilized
and the mesh density is set to 30
3
= 27,000 cells. The algorithm is allowed to run for G = 5000 generations. Comparative re-
sults between our method and other methods from literature [1423] are given in Table 2 in 4pe units. The capacitance
found by the proposed method is in good agreement with the published results.
5.2. Capacitance of stripline
The more practical case of a stripline above an innite conductive plane is studied next. As this type of geometry plays a
signicant role in the modern VSLI circuits it has been thoroughly investigated. The stripline can be approximated to rst
order by an innite line of zero thickness. The problem is then solved by applying conformal mapping techniques [24] giving
the following formula for the capacitance per unit length of the stripline to the innite plane.
C 4e
Kk
0

Kk
6
k sech
p
2
w
2s
_ _
7
where K(k) is the complete elliptic integral of the rst kind, which cannot be explicitly solved k
2
k
0

2
1, w is the width of
the line and s its distance from the backplane. Several empirical formulae have been reported where the contribution of the
Fig. 6. Performance of the proposed method in terms of the mesh density and the number of charges.
Table 1
Performance in terms of average simulation time of the proposed method in comparison to the FEM method for several test cases.
Pair of
interconnects
Pair of
cubes
A parallelepiped above innite
plane
Pair of parallelepipeds with one
dimension thin
Simulation (Comsol-FEM
method)[13]
1 s 2 s 12 s 26 s
Proposed method 1 s 3 s 5 s 8 s
Speedup (proposed/Comsol) 1 0.66 2.40 3.25
644 Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648
thickness of the stripline h is considered to the nal capacitance value. The earliest empirical formulae which were reported
were almost totally based on tting techniques. A typical example is the SakuraiTamaru equation [10]:
C e 1:15
w
s
_ _
2:80
h
s
_ _
0:222
_ _
8
Despite having the simplest form, the comparatively low accuracy that they exhibit makes them useful mostly for hand
calculations. Recently, new formulae have been reported arising from the physics of the problem. The resulting equations
involve integrals which cannot be explicitly solved. In order to extract an explicit solution, tting parameters are imposed
for eliminating the integrals. This category of formulae is characterized by more complex expressions, different for each par-
ticular case. For example Franco Stellari has computed the capacitance [6] to the plane of a stripline as:
C aC
B
w=h 2bC
V
t=h cC
T
w=t h 9
where C
V
, C
B
and C
T
are each a function of M(k) and
Mk
2p
ln 2
1

1k
2
4
p
1

1k
2
4
p
_ _
0 6 k 6
1

2
p
2
p
ln 2
1

k
p
1

k
p
_ _
1

2
p
6 k 6 1
_

_
10
M is a function itself of the parameter k, properly dened in each case. The main drawback of all these formulae is the
limited range of validity due to the tting techniques utilized.
The proposed method was applied to the problem of the stripline examining two different cross sections of the latter. The
obtained values were compared to simulation data and to formulae (8) and (9) as shown in Fig. 7. As it can be seen, the for-
mulae (8) and (9) exhibit larger discrepancies with the simulation data in comparison to the proposed method, especially at
closer distances. This may be attributed to the fact that this specic type of geometry may lie outside their range of validity.
5.3. Capacitance of three innite conductors
As next example the case of three innite conductors (interconnects) has been studied. Comparative results between our
method and the benchmark interconnect geometry data from the Predictive Technology Model (PTM) [25] are shown in
Fig. 8. The capacitance between the two outer interconnects is compared with simulation data only, since the PTM predicts
only the coupling capacitances between the middle and each of the outer ones. As it can be seen the data obtained from the
simulator show a discrepancy in comparison with the PTM, while the data from our model lie in between the two curves.
The capacitance of the three innite conductors is computed by solving the following system of equations:
Q
1
C
12
V
12
C
13
V
13
Q
2
C
21
V
21
C
23
V
23
Q
3
C
31
V
31
C
32
V
32
_

_
11
where and C
ij
, V
ij
is the capacitance and the voltage difference, respectively, between the i and j conductors. Obviously it
holds that C
ij
= C
ji
and V
ij
= V
ji
.
5.4. Capacitance of a nite conductor above an innite conductive plane
The proposed method has been also applied to pure 3D problems. One such problem is a structure of nite dimensions
above an innite conductive plane. This geometry corresponds to the case of a metal contact lying above a structure having a
Table 2
Comparative results for the capacitance of an isolated unit cube. Results are shown in 4pe units.
Applied method Result
GreenspanSilverman, nite difference method [14] 0.661
GotoShiYoshida, surface charge method [15] 0.6606747 5 10
7
DouglasZhouHubbard, Brownian dynamics algorithm [16] 0.6632 3 10
4
GivenHubbardDouglas, rened Brownian dynamics algorithm [17] 0.660675 1 10
5
Read, rened boundary element method [18] 0.6606785 6 10
7
ManseldDouglasGarboczi, Brownian dynamics algorithm [19] 0.66069
BaiLonngren, surface charge method [20] 0.6601
MascagniSimonov, Random walk on the boundary [21] 0.6606780 2.7 10
7
Wintle, random walk methods [22] [0.6596, 0.6619]
HwangMascagniWon, Monte Carlo methods [23] 0.66067813 1.01 10
7
Proposed method, extended method of images [0.6738, 0.6820]
Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648 645
signicantly larger area, over 10 times. Although the nite structure can be approximated by a 2D geometry by ignoring its
thickness this will result to an erroneous calculation. In fact the error increases signicantly [26] as the distance of the struc-
ture to the plane is reduced and the fringing capacitance due to the side surface becomes signicant. For this reason, and to
the best of the authors knowledge, no empirical formulae have been reported so far for these problems.
Two different cases are studied, one with a square base of side width w = 10 and one with rectangular base of side width
w = 10 and length L = 20, in terms of their distance s = [10, 50] to the plane. The thickness of the structure is in both cases
t = 0.5. The dimensions of the structures are selected in accordance with the typical values encountered in practice. The re-
sults have been compared to both simulation data from the commercial simulator and to the RCCG method [27] which com-
putes the capacitance by nding the correct path of the electric eld lines.
The results are illustrated in Fig. 9. As it can be seen, the data from the proposed method show a better agreement with
simulation data in comparison with the RCCG method for the closer distances. The reason for this is that in the RCCG method,
the electric eld lines are approximated with a conical shape. This approximation is not suitable for too small distances
where the electric eld lines between the close faces become almost straight.
5.5. Capacitance of two conductors of nite dimensions
The more general and practical case of the capacitance between two nite structures has been also simulated in terms of
the proposed method. This type of geometry can no longer be considered as 2D and therefore the conventional conformal
mapping techniques are not valid.
Fig. 7. Calculated capacitance to the grounded plane of a stripline as a function of its distance to the plane for two different cross sections of the stripline, a
square with side width w = 1 and a rectangular with side width w = 1 and length L = 2.
Fig. 8. Verication of the proposed method with the benchmark interconnect geometry from the Predictive Technology Model and with simulation data.
646 Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648
The studied cases simulated by the proposed method consist of two coupled orthogonal parallelepipeds with different
dimensions. The rst has a square base of side width w = 10 and the second a rectangular base of the same width and length
L = 20. The four different alignment congurations shown in the inset of Fig. 10 have been studied. The thickness of both
structures is t = 0.5 corresponding to typical values encountered in practice. The mutual capacitance between the coupled
structures is examined in terms of their separation distance and the results are presented in Fig. 10 in comparison to the
simulation data.
6. Conclusions and further work
A method to deal with the problem of the capacitance computation in VLSI circuits is presented in this work. By exploiting
and extending the method of images in electromagnetism, the original problem of nding the capacitance of a given set of
conductors is translated here to a problem of nding a proper placement. The space inside the conductors is discretized and a
set of charges is supposed to be placed inside the conductors so that the produced equipotential surfaces will match the out-
er surfaces of the given conductors. This problem is then solved efciently by developing a GA-based method.
Comparative simulation results are presented against a commercial tool and against empirical formulae from literature.
The capacitance values as computed by the proposed method are in good agreement with the results obtained by the com-
mercial tool with the average difference lying in the range of 25% while demonstrating better scalability as the problem
Fig. 9. Computed capacitance of a nite structure above an innite plane as a function of its separation distance s. Two different cases are depicted one with
square base of side width w = 1 and one with rectangular base of side width w = 1 and length L = 2.
Fig. 10. Computed capacitance of two conductors with nite dimensions and different shapes as a function of their separation distance for four different
offsets. The length of the rectangular structure is L = 2w and the thickness of both is t = w/10.
Y.I. Bontzios et al. / Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 19 (2011) 638648 647
complexity rises. Moreover, it does not rely on tting techniques. The proposed method is fast even when solving complex
geometries for which the FEM method requires comparatively signicant increased time. Additionally, it provides easy setup
for the problem under investigation (we only need to dene the mesh size and the number of charges and the GA param-
eters) whereas in the FEM method boundary conditions need to be dened analytically.
One intrinsic property of the proposed method is that it can be easily parallelized and there are several straightforward
ways for achieving this. Work is under way to implement a parallel version of the proposed method and also to apply the
current method to more complex structures.
Acknowledgements
This research is co-nanced by Hellenic Funds and by the European Regional Development Fund under the Hellenic Na-
tional Strategic Reference Framework 20072013, according to Contract No. MICRO2-47 of the Project Next Generation Mil-
limeter Wave Backhaul Radio within the Programme Hellenic Technology Clusters in Microelectronics Phase-2 Aid
Measure.
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