Numerical coupling of thermal-electric network models and energy-transport equations including optoelectronic semiconductor devices [Elektronische Ressource] / Markus Brunk

Markus Brunk

Sujets

• Physik

Informations

• Publié par: johannes_gutenberg-universitat_mainz
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 12
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Numerical coupling of thermal-electric
network models and energy-transport
equations including optoelectronic
semiconductor devices
Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Grades
Doktor der Naturwissenschaften
Am Fachbereich Physik, Mathematik und Informatik
der Johannes Gutenberg-Universit at Mainz
Markus Brunk,
geboren in Idar-Oberstein
Mainz, 2008II
Tag der mundlic hen Prufung: 11. M arz 2008
D77 { Mainzer DissertationAbstract
In this work the numerical coupling between electric and thermal network as
well as electronic and optoelectronic semiconductor device models is treated.
An overview over electric and thermal network modeling as well as the hie-
rarchy of semiconductor models is given.
For electric network modeling the modi ed nodal approach (MNA) is ap-
plied what results in a system of di eren tial-algebraic equations. Thermally
the network is modeled by an accompanying thermal network resulting in a
system of di eren tial or di eren tial-algebraic equations of parabolic type.
Semiconductor devices are modeled by use of the energy-transport model.
The model allows for the computation of the charge carrier temperature and
thus accounts for local thermal e ects in the device. In this work the energy-
transport model is extended to a model for optoelectronic devices like laser
and photo diodes for the rst time. Mathematically, the energy-transport
equations constitute a elliptic-parabolic cross-di usion system. It can be
written in a drift-di usion-t ype formulation, which allows for an e cien t
numerical approximation. For more detailed thermal consideration of de-
vices non isothermal crystal lattice modeling is included. The temperature
of the crystal lattice is modeled by the heat o w equation. The correspon-
ding energy conserving source term is derived under thermodynamical and
phenomenological considerations of energy uxes.
The coupling of the di eren t subsystems is described. We follow the
approach to include the energy-transport model into the network equations
directly. The heat o w equation for the lattice temperature is included
into the accompanying thermal network model. The nal thermoelectric
network-device model results in a coupled system of partial di er ential-
algebraic equations (PDAE).
For numerical examples we consider the case of one-dimensional devices.
For space discretization of the device equations a hybridized mixed nite
element scheme is applied that allows to maintain the continuity of the device
current and the positivity of charge carrier densities. Exponential tting is
applied for good approximation in the convection dominated case. To keep
positivity of charge carriers also for the coupled system and to account
for the di eren tial algebraic character of the system backward di erence
formulas are applied for time discretization.
For e cien t solution of the coupled system resulting from optoelec-
tronic device modeling and thermoelectric network device coupling, iterative
solvers are presented. Numerical examples are presented for (opto)electronic
network device coupling. A focus is on the numerical results for semicon-
ductor devices including non-isothermal crystal lattice. Finally numerical
results for a complete thermoelectrically simulated circuit are presented.Chapter
Contents
Introduction V
I. Thermoelectric modeling of semiconductor devices and
integrated circuits
1. Electric network modeling 3
1.1 Network elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Network topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 Nodal approach (NA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4 Modi ed nodal approach (MNA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. Thermal network modeling 13
2.1 Thermal network topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Network components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Coupling between thermal nodes and branches . . . . . . . . 17
2.4 The complete thermal network model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3. Semiconductor device modeling 21
3.1 Hierarchy of semi-classical models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2 Energy-transport and drift-di usion equations . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3 Optoelectronic device modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.4 Heating of the crystal lattice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4. Thermoelectric network-device coupling 43
4.1 Electric network-device coupling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.2 Thermal netw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.3 Electro-thermal coupling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.4 The complete coupled model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
IIIIV Contents
II. Discretization and numerical solution of thermoelectric
coupled network-device systems
5. Nondimensionalization 57
5.1 Transport equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5.2 Scaled optoelectronic device equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.3 Scaled heat o w equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.4 Scaled thermoelectric network-device model . . . . . . . . . . 61
6. Discretization of coupled network-device PDAEs 63
6.1 Time discretization with backward di erence formulas . . . . 63
6.2 Space using hybridized mixed nite elements . 65
6.3 Discretization of the heat o w equations . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7. Iterative algorithms 73
7.1 Computation of thermal equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
7.2 Nonequilibrium state for optoelectronic devices . . . . . . . . 74
7.3 Iterative solver including the heat equation . . . . . . . . . . 77
7.4 Coupled network-device system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
8. Numerical examples 81
8.1 Energy-Transport model with di eren t boundary conditions . 82
8.2 Electric network-device coupling for a recti er circuit . . . . . 87
8.3 Optoelectronic network-device coupling . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
8.4 Lattice heating in semiconductor devices . . . . . . . . . . . 100
8.5 Thermoelectric simulation of a frequency multiplier . . . . . . 112
Summary and outlook 117
A. Notation 119
B. List of Figures 123
Bibliography 127Introduction
Introduction
The advance in telecommunications and computer technology within the last
decades is representative for the technological progress of the society. This
highly visible progress is strongly driven by the development of new and
more powerful electronic and optoelectronic devices and integrated circuits.
On nowadays chips millions of network elements are included. The ongo-
ing miniaturization of single elements and integrated circuits, leading from
micro- to nanotechnology, will allow for increasing performance in telecom-
munications in the near future.
Chip design and development strongly depends an reliable circuit si-
mulation, predicting the electrical behavior of circuits before the expensive
production of prototypes. Thus, reliable circuit simulators will serve as
time- and money-saving tool in application and speed up the technological
progress.
In traditional circuit simulators semiconductor devices are replaced by
compact circuits consisting of basic elements (resistances, capacitances, in-
ductances and sources) rebuilding the electrical behavior of the device. This
strategy was advantageous up to now since integrated circuit simulation
was possible without computationally expensive device simulation. Minia-
turization, however, leads to smaller devices driven by higher frequencies.
Parasitic and local thermal e ects occur and may become predominant. This
requires to take into account a very large number of basic elements and ad-
just carefully a large number of parameters to achieve required accuracy.
Moreover device heating and localization of hot spots are not covered by
the compact model approach.
This makes it preferable to employ distributed models for the electric
and thermal description of devices. The rst approaches to couple circuits
and devices were based on an extension of existing device simulators by more
complex boundary conditions [67, 82] or the combination of device simula-
tors with circuit simulators as a \black box" solver [37]. Both approaches,
however, are not suitable for complex circuits in the high-frequency domain.
The mathematical analysis and numerical approximation of coupled net-
work and device equations were studied only recently. The rst mathema-
tical results were obtained in [41, 44] where a semiconductor device was
coupled to a simple circuit in such a way that the currents entering the de-
VVI Introduction
vice can be expressed by a function of the applied voltage. In this case, the
network is treated only as a special boundary condition for the semiconduc-
tor. This approach fails for integrated circuits.
Later, networks containing semiconductor devices described by the drift-
di usion equations were studied. An existence analysis containing the drift- model was developed in [4, 5]. In [97, 98] it is shown that the
index of the coupled network-device system for devices modeled by the drift-
di usion equations is at most two under weak conditions on the circuit (local
passivity, no shortcuts). The exact index depends on the topology of the
circuit. The same results were obtained in [88] for the discretized drift-
di usion equations. For detail we r