3.6.4 Mixed-Mode

Minimos-NT has been equipped with circuit simulation capabilities [126]. The circuit may consist of an arbitrary number of compact and distributed devices. Default compact devices are, e.g., several kinds of sources, resistances, conductors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, or transistors. Any number of distributed devices may be added to the circuit, each of them described by a separate section in the database. Instead of applying voltages or currents at the contacts as it is the case for single mode simulations the contacts are connected to nodes in the circuit. Thus, the semiconductor transport equations are solved together with the compact models in one circuit.

For the description of circuits the inheritance feature of the Input Deck is extensively used. The basic idea is that circuits consist of subcircuits which consist of subsubcircuits and so on. Each circuit is defined as a self-contained circuit and forms a black box. Black boxes and devices can again be used to form another circuit.

A circuit is described in a section. Its components may be subcircuits, devices, or compact devices. Each component is described by a section, too. The components of a circuit are usually inherited from the black boxes defined before. Variables inside a circuit definition form the contacts. There are two types of contacts: Inner contacts which are only used within the current circuit and outer contacts which form the input and output ports. To connect the components of a circuit, their outer contacts are assigned the names of the contacts of the circuit. The global circuit to be simulated is defined in the section called Circuit. This approach allows the definition of circuits of any complexity.