TABLE OF CONTENTS Computer simulation is today a standard part of integrated circuit design. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] During this process, the computer solves a large set of equations describing (1) the connections between the various circuit elements and (2) the models of these elements. Circuits to be simulated can contain very large numbers of elements. The model for each element can contain a large number of equations. The behavior of the entire circuit may be needed at many points, e.g., 1000 times points for a transient simulation, and all equations may have to be solved repeatedly for each point, as part of numerical iterations for solving the implicit equations. Thus, some computer simulations are very time-consuming. Computing time statistics show that often most of the computation time is spent in evaluating the quantities that are described by the device model equations. It follows, then, that the model equations must be as simple as possible, provided accuracy is not compromised. Over the years, many MOS transistor models for use in computer simulation have been described. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79]
