Model reduction for DC solution of large nonlinear circuits

Abstract

A new algorithm based on model reduction using the Krylov subspace technique is proposed to compute the DC solution of large nonlinear circuits. The proposed method combines continuation methods with model reduction techniques. Thus it enables the application of the continuation methods to an equivalent reduced-order set of nonlinear equations instead of the original system. This results in a significant reduction in the computational expense as the size of the reduced equations is much less than that of the original system. The reduced order system is obtained by projecting the set of nonlinear equations, whose solution represents the DC operating point, into a subspace of a much lower dimension. It is also shown that both the reduced-order system and the original system share the first q derivatives w.r.t. the circuit variable used to parameterize the family of the solution trajectories generated by the continuation method.