An application of the forward-backward (FB) method for capacitance extraction problems of planar structures

Capacitance extraction for three-dimensional (3-D) conductors located on planar structures has various applications, especially in the design and packaging of integrated circuits. One of the most commonly used methods for capacitance extraction problems is the method of moments (MM). In this study, the forward-backward (FB) method, which is an iterative MM, is applied for solving these problems effectively. It is found that the method is an O(N/sup 2/) algorithm per iteration, where N is the total number of unknowns. In addition, the FB method provides accurate results compared to those of the standard MM with less computational times for relatively large problems. Convergence characteristics of the FB method are also studied in this paper.