Abstract:

A full-band Cellular Monte Carlo (CMC)/full-wave Maxwell simulator is presented and applied to the global modeling of high-frequency submillimeter and microwave transistors. In this work, global modeling refers to the combination of solid-state device physics with full-wave electromagnetics (EM). This approach attempts to provide a more complete physical model of the device and its interaction with the surrounding environment. Two different three-dimensional EM solvers have been implemented and self-consistently coupled to an existing full-band, CMC device simulator. The first is based upon the conventional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) approach. The second one utilizes the alternate-direction implicit (ADI) method which relaxes the Courant-Fredericks-Levy (CFL) stability criterion and reduces the total number of simulation timesteps required. Both solvers are implemented with state-of-the-art perfectly matched layer (PML) absorbing boundary conditions to effectively truncate the working simulation space. The numerical methods and techniques utilized within the full-band CMC device simulator and both EM solvers are explained in detail and benchmarking results are presented to validate the accuracy of the employed techniques. The coupled full-band/full-wave simulator is then used to study the high-frequency response of metal-semiconductor field effect transistors (MESFETs) via direct S-parameter extraction from coupled device simulations. This work demonstrates the usefulness of this new simulation tool in the development of microwave transistors and submillimeter-wave device technologies.