Automatic Modeling and Parasitic Extraction of Differential Horseshoe-Shaped Transmission Lines for Millimeter-Wave Circuits

This work presents an automated approach to the modeling, simulation, and parasitic extraction of horseshoe-shaped transmission lines operating at millimeter-wave frequencies. Horseshoe-shaped lines offer several advantages over their rectangular counterparts, but are difficult to model quickly using the capabilities of electromagnetic (EM) simulators due to their combined orthogonal and radial dimensions. Modeling transmission lines is an integral part of microelectronic circuit design, as complete circuits cannot be designed without them. Unfortunately, characterizing interconnect is also an intensive and time-consuming portion of the design process due to the speed of EM solvers and the myriad possibilities of line geometries designers explore to identify the optimal lines for efficient circuit behavior. In this work, an automated approach is presented that allows 756 structures to be automatically drawn and simulated over the 90–160 GHz frequency range with minimal human involvement. After simulating each structure, the transmission line characteristics and parasitics are automatically extracted and exported into table and file format. The proposed approach allows for the creation of a complete database of horseshoe-shaped transmission line characteristics and facilitates analysis of the lines with less than a half hour of human interaction.