Best Practices for Compact Modeling in Verilog-A

Mcandrew, C.C.; Coram, G.J.; Gullapalli, K.K.; Jones, J.R.; Nagel, L.; Roy, A.S.; Roychowdhury, J.; Scholten, A.J.; Smit, G.D.J.; Wang, X.; Yoshitomi, S., "Best Practices for Compact Modeling in Verilog-A," Electron Devices Society, IEEE Journal of the , vol.PP, no.99, pp.1,1

doi: 10.1109/JEDS.2015.2455342

Abstract: Verilog-A is the de facto standard language that the semiconductor industry uses to define compact models. Unfortunately, it is easy to write models poorly in Verilog-A, and this can lead to unphysical model behavior, poor convergence, and difficulty in understanding and maintaining model codes. This paper details best practices for writing compact models in Verilog-A, to try to help raise the quality of compact modeling throughout the industry.

keywords: Capacitance, Computational modeling, Convergence, Hardware design languages, Integrated circuit modeling, Mathematical model, Numerical models

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Octave-Forge Community Choice POTM

The Octave-Forge packages -- Community Choice Project of the Month for July

For one of the July "Community Choice" Projects of the Month, the community elected Octave-Forge, a central location for the collaborative development of packages for GNU Octave, a high-level interpreted language. The Octave-Forge packages expand Octave's core functionality by providing field specific features via Octave's package system. Some of the individual Octave-Forge packages include: image and signal processing, fuzzy logic, instrument control, and statistics packages.

Download Octave-Forge now.

Related Projects:

• VFreeMat--An interpreted, matrix-oriented development environment for engineering and scientific applications.
• AquaTerm--A Mac OS X grahics renderer.
• Quite Universal Circuit Simulator--A circuit simulator with graphical user interface (GUI)

Analog CMOS from 5 micrometer to 5 nanometer

 Sansen, W., "1.3 Analog CMOS from 5 micrometer to 5 nanometer," ISSCC 2015 IEEE International , vol., no., pp.1,6, 22-26 Feb. 2015 doi: 10.1109/ISSCC.2015.7062848 

Abstract: In our future, as usual, analog designers will continue to expand their expertise and knowledge in response to changing needs. While devices will change their nature and operate at higher and higher frequencies, their I-V characteristics will remain similar. In the near term, increased speed of MOS circuits, will be reached by operating deeper in weak inversion. Offset and 1/f noise will continue to play a critical role. Thus, in general, it seems that analog expertise is insensitive to technology change.

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QUCS: Project of the Week, June 1, 2015

 The Qucs is one of the featured projects for the week (June 1, 2015), which appear on the front page of SourceForge.net:

 Qucs is a circuit simulator with a graphical user interface. The software aims to support all kinds of circuit simulation types such as, e.g. DC, AC, S-parameter, Transient, Noise, and Harmonic Balance analysis. Pure digital simulations are also supported.
[ Download Quite Universal Circuit Simulator ]

3rd Training Course on Compact Modeling

 3rd TCCM, 

 organized as IEEE EDS Mini-Colloquium 
 (http://eds.ieee.org/lectures.html?eid=136)

Co-organizer: Institute of Electron Technology, Warsaw, Poland
Technical Program Promoter: DMCS, Lodz University of Technology, Łódź, Poland

Date: June 24, 2015.
Place: Hotel Bulwar (Lejda room) ul. Bulwar Filadelfijski 18, 87-100 Toruń, Poland
www: http://www.hotelbulwar.pl

Final schedule of TCCM:
9:00 Wladek Grabinski, Opening
9:10 Henryk Przewłocki, "Weaknesses and corrections of the classical theory of photoelectric phenomena in the MOS system"
10:00 Juin J.Liou, "Compact Modeling of Junction Failure in Semiconductor Devices Subject to Electrostatic Discharge Stresses"
10:50 Coffee break
11:10 Jean-Michel Sallese, "Modeling Junctionless Field Effect Transistors"
12:00 Mike Brinson, "A unified approach to compact device modelling with the open source packages Qucs/ADMS and MAPP/Octave"
13:00 Lunch
14:30 Benjamin Iniguez, "Physically-Based Compact Modeling of GaN HEMT"
15:20 Wladek Grabinski, "Verilog-A Compact Model Standardization"
16:10 Daniel Tomaszewski, "Compact modeling and statistical modeling for parametric yield improvement"
17:00 Wladek Grabinski, Closing