ICE: incremental 3-dimensional capacitance and resistance extraction for an iterative design environment

In this paper we discuss the 3-Dimensional (3-D) capacitance and resistance extraction within an iterative design environment, where small changes are made to the 3-D structures. We present a bounded incremental algorithm for accurate and fast 3-D extraction in such a design environment, based on the Boundary Element Method (BEM). The incremental algorithm can re-utilize the computation results of previous extractions and rapidly re-compute the new parasitic parameters in response to the design changes made to the layout. The incremental algorithm has been implemented in the ICE tool. Experimental results on a set of 3-D interconnect structures show that the incremental algorithm is efficient for the iterative design methodology. For one large structure, the incremental extraction is over 20 times faster than the full extraction without using the incremental algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported work on an incremental algorithm for capacitance and resistance extraction.