SHF: Medium: Closing Multiphysics Analysis Gaps in System Design

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Design tools and methods for electronic components need to ensure that they are low-cost, low-energy, last longer, deliver better performance, and operate correctly across a diverse range of conditions. To guarantee this, engineers need analysis tools that understand mechanical shock, temperature, aging and in addition to electrical phenomena - in short, many different "physics" that are all wrapped up into a single analysis question. The analysis must also span time scales from nanoseconds to years, and spatial scales from nanometers to centimeters. Such tools do not exist today. This project will develop the "multiphysics" analysis methods that aims to address such questions for future electronic system designers. Researchers will bring together techniques from chip design, thermal and reliability analysis, mechanical simulation and other domains learning each other?s fields of expertise, and creating new analysis tools that will be used in both industry and teaching contexts. The outreach aspects of the project involve training undergraduate and graduate students for the electronic design automation industry.The project will have three main technical goals. The first goal is to come up with fast algorithms to simulate and predict the physics of heat propagation, mechanical stress, and electrical signaling in extremely complex structures. The second goal is to enable computer codes to span multiple scales in space and in time. This will allow system design tools to correctly analyze propagation of electrical signals through nanoscale devices as the larger system is subjected to heating or mechanical shocks occurring at much longer time scales. The third goal is to develop new ways of efficiently understanding "multiphysics", e.g., the interaction between electrical, thermal and mechanical, along with temporal phenomena, when analyzing an electronic system.