STAVES: Speedy Tensor-Aided Volterra-Based Electronic Simulator

Volterra series is a powerful tool for blackbox macromodeling of nonlinear devices. However, the exponential complexity growth in storing and evaluating higher order Volterra kernels has limited so far its employment on complex practical applications. On the other hand, tensors are a higher order generalization of matrices that can naturally and efficiently capture multidimensional data. Significant computational savings can often be achieved when the appropriate low-rank tensor decomposition is available. In this paper we exploit a strong link between tensors and frequency-domain Volterra kernels in modeling nonlinear systems. Based on such link we have developed a technique called speedy tensor-aided Volterra-based electronic simulator (STAVES) utilizing high-order Volterra transfer functions for highly accurate time-domain simulation of nonlinear systems. The main computational tools in our approach are the canonical tensor decomposition and the inverse discrete Fourier transform. Examples demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method in simulating some practical nonlinear circuit structures. Keywords—Tensor, tensor decomposition, Volterra series, nonlinear simulation, discrete Fourier transform