Static and quasi-dynamic load balancing in parallel FDTD codes for signal integrity, power integrity, and packaging applications

S.A. Seguin, M.A. Cracraft, J.L. Drewniak
2004 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37559)  
The Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method is a robust technique for calculating electmmagnetic fields, but praclical problem, involving complex or large geometries, ean require a long time to calculate on any one single-processor Computer. One computer mtb many pmcessors or many single-processor computers can reduce the computation time. However, some FDTD cell types, e.g., PML cells, require more computation time than others. Thus, the size and shape of the individual process allocations
more » ... can significantly inhence the computation time. This paper addresses these I d b a h c i n g issues with slpfic and quasi-dynamic approaches. The Message-Passing Interface (MPI) library is applied to a three-dimensional (3D) FDTD code. Timing results including speedup and efiiency, are presented for trials run on a cluster of sixteen processing, nodes and one sewer node. Two examples are shown in this paper, a power bus with 16 decoupling capacitors and a five layer power distribution network. In such models, the problem size and complexity make modeling with a serial code impractical and time consuming for engineering. Models with several million cells take days to run, but proper implementation, including load balancing, can reduce this execution time to hours on a sufficiently powerful duster.
doi:10.1109/isemc.2004.1350006 fatcat:v32nkv372jejveslttrzdp33mq