Frequency- and time-domain analysis of high-frequency on-chip interconnects with nonuniform conductor edges

In this paper we illustrate a modeling framework to analyze on-chip transmission lines affected by longitudinal nonuniformities in their conductor edges. The method consists of two steps. First, a macromodel for the frequency-dependent per-unit-length parameters is constructed based on an accurate field solver and it is used to conveniently obtain the pertinent place-dependent line parameters. Second, a fast and accurate perturbation technique is used to analyze the nonuniform transmission line problem. As shown by the application example, the proposed technique makes the statistical assessment for a large number of edge profiles feasible. Numerical results and discussions are provided for the case of an on-chip inverted embedded microstrip line.