An efficient piecewise-linear DC analysis method for general non-linear circuits

The convergence problems of conventional DC analysis can be partly avoided by using piecewise-linear analysis. This paper proposes a piecewise-linear DC analysis method that can efficiently handle arbitrary couplings between non-linear circuit elements. Piecewise-linear modelling of the non-linear c ircuit elements is automatically performed during simulation, using simplic ial subdivisions. The number of linear regions, and thereby iterations, is considerably reduced by combining the common parts of separate simplicial s ubdivisions. Due to these reasons and since the method is formulated with t he commonly used modified nodal approach, it has been possible to implement the method in the general-purpose circuit simulator APLAC. The correct ope ration of the method is demonstrated with three examples. Copyright (C) 199 9 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.