Efficient direct and iterative electrodynamic analysis of geometrically complex MIC and MMIC structures

Rigorous full ‐wave analysis techniques are presently receiving much attention in the design of MICs and, in particular, of MMICs due to increasing circuit packing densities and structural complexity. In this paper, the problems associated with such techniques and previous related work are briefly outlined in the introduction. To obtain self ‐consistency, the electrodynamic Green's functions and related terms are then formulated for the shielded (M)MIC problem. The final operator equation for the numerical solutions derived and the associated functions space are presented and discussed. The central portion of the paper describes a new numerical solution using a discretized Green's function database technique. The resulting linear system of equations is solved by direct inversion for geometrical complexities involving up to about 1000 unknowns; for a higher number of unknowns, an iterative solution is generated. As an alternative to the database technique developed, a variety of spectral domain iterative solutions has been written and tested as well. This includes application of the conjugate gradient method to the normal operator equation (CGN algorithm), an implicit iterative Galerkin approximation called the modified planar conjugate gradient technique (MPCG) and monotonically convergent iteration procedure being a version of the conjugate residual algorithm (CR). Supplementary to this, the extraction of (M)MIC design data from the numerical 3D solutions obtained and error considerations are presented. The paper concludes with a variety of analysis examples of medium to high geometrical complexity and with verification of some results by comparison with measurements and with numerical data from other sources. CPU times required on typical workstations (Micro VAX, HP 9000, etc.) are moderate, thus rendering the techniques presented as useful in the solution of MIC and MMIC design problems.