Patent ID: 7895540

Claim:
A method, operable on a digital computer, for electromagnetically simulating a planar multilayer structure, comprising: providing a data file to the digital computer that defines the material properties and layout of each plane, transmission line and via of the planar multilayer structure; defining, with the digital computer, a plurality of unit cells that each represent a portion of the planar multilayer structure and that includes all planes of the planar multilayer structure; for each unit cell; processing, using the digital computer, the data associated with the cell to generate an individual equivalent circuit model for that cell using a multilayer finite difference method; employing the digital computer to interconnect the unit cells to create an overall circuit model for the planar multilayer structure; processing, using the digital computer, the overall circuit model to obtain frequency or time domain responses for the planar multilayer structure; generating, with the digital computer, fringe and gap models for the single plane pairs to take into account second-order effects; and constructing, with the digital computer, a multilayered unit-cell model by combining unit-cell models of the single plane pairs along with the fringe and gap models.