A new parallel adaptive finite volume method for the numerical simulation of semiconductor devices

Based on adaptive finite volume approximation, a posteriori error estimation, and monotone iteration, a novel system is proposed for parallel simulations of semiconductor devices. The system has two distinct parallel algorithms to perform a complete set of I-V simulations for any specific device model. The first algorithm is a domain decomposition on I-irregular unstructured meshes whereas the second is a parallelization of multiple I-V points. Implemented on a Linux cluster using message passing interface libraries, both algorithms are shown to have excellent balances on dynamic loading and hence result in efficient speedup. Compared with measurement data, computational results of sub-micron MOSFET devices are given to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the system. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.