IBM research's interest in these areas goes back almost 30 years with the seminal development of the first 3D quasi-static inductance and capacitance extraction tools for modeling of complex packaging structures based on partial element-equivalent circuits (PEEC) by Albert Ruehli and the 2D frequency-dependent, transmission line modeling tool by William Weeks. The PEEC extractor has been widely used in IBM, several companies market PEEC-based tools, and many universities worldwide have extensive research programs based on this technique. Twelve years ago, Albert Ruehli pioneered a powerful extension by including retardation and thus starting a full-wave, full-spectrum, time-domain varying electric and magnetic field solver. At the same time, Barry Rubin has been gradually extending the capabilities of William Weeks' original 2D quasi-static code to include complex dielectric structures, lossy materials, non-rectangular shapes, and advanced automatic girding. Around the same time with the introduction of retarded-PEED, Barry Rubin began the development of a frequency-domain full-wave, electromagnetic field solver that uses the method-of-moment surface integration technique. EMITPKG is now probably one of the most powerful 3D solvers for frequency-dependent-transmission line parameters, capable of analyzing extremely complex (400k unknowns already performed) on-chip and packaging interconnects.
Continued advances with all these modeling and simulation tools and novel measurement techniques are making it possible for the EIP team to provide guidance and support for advanced system designs that are reaching toward 10GHz clock frequencies.
The high level of system integration afforded by technological advances, and availability and demand for pervasive computing is now generating extremely complex system-on-a-chip (SOC) or system-on-a-package (SOP). The high speed and complexity demands development of new type of design tools that can accurately and efficiently model full-chip or full-system needs.
The EIP team is now working not only on high-accuracy, wide-bandwidth techniques but also full-system, automated design tools. The ultimate goal of our group is autonomic design, modeling and analysis for complex, high-performance electrical integrated systems.
As an example, we have recently released an extremely powerful and unique in the industry modeling and simulation CAD tool entitled AQUAIA for complex on-chip wiring design (developed by Abe Elfadel, Design Automation, and Alina Deutsch). We have also developed the most powerful full-chip noise verification tool in use today (co-developed by Alina Deutsch). We are continually leveraging leading-edge transmission-line macromodeling techniques for signal integrity simulation at several top-ranked universities (University of Torino, Carleton University, University of Illinois) and have the most accurate, efficient, and robust Spice-type simulator in the industry.
The combined talents, expertise and experience in modeling, simulation, measurement, and design allowed us to successfully operate the first key building block, the I/O link, for the massively-parallel supercomputer Blue Gene, under development in our department. The EIP team is collaborating extensively with many universities, organizes workshops, conferences, special sessions at conferences, gives tutorials, publishes invited papers in key journals, participates in leading positions of the IEEE society, and mentors research at universities and other consortia. In IBM we organize several yearly workshops and are considered the leading technical advisors in the area of electrical analysis.
Related Publications
G. Almasi et al., "Cellular Supercomputing with System-on-a-Chip ", presented and published in ISSCC 2002 Digest, Feb. 2-4, 2002, San Francisco, CA, vol. 2, pp.152-153, vol. 1, pp.196-197.
G. Antonini et al., "Analytical Integration of Quasi-Static Potential Integrals on Non-orthogonal Coplanar Quadrilaterals for the PEEC Method", IEEE Transactions. EMC, vol. 44, no. 2, pp.399-403, May 2002.
A. Deutsch, et al., "Characterization and Performance Evaluation of Differential Shielded Cables for Multi-Gb/s Data-Rates", IEEE Trans. Advanced Packaging, vol. 25, no. 1, pp.102-117, Feb. 2002.
A. Deutsch, et al., "Accuracy of Dielectric Constant Measurement Using the Full-Sheet-Resonance technique IPC-TM-650 2.5.5.6" presented and published in Digest of 11th IEEE Topical meeting on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, Oct. 21-23, 2002, Monterey, CA, pp. 311-314.
I.M. Elfadel, et al., "AQUAIA: A CAD Tool for On-Chip Interconnect Modeling, Analysis, and Optimization", presented and published in Digest of 11th IEEE Topical meeting on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, Oct. 21-23, 2002, Monterey, CA, pp. 337-340.
I.M. Elfadel, et al., "Accuracy and performance of Passive Transmission Line Macromodels Based on Optimal Matrix Rational Approximations", presented and published in Digest of 11th IEEE Topical meeting on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, Oct. 21-23, 2002, Monterey, CA, pp. 351-354.
B. Rubin, et al., "Electrical Modeling of High-Speed Source Synchronous Communication", presented and published in Digest of 11the IEEE Topical meeting on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, Oct. 21-23, 2002, Monterey, CA, pp. 23-26.
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