Full Hydrodynamic Simulation of GaAs MESFET’s

A finite difference upwind discretization scheme in two dimensions is presented in detail for the transient simulation of the highly coupled non-linear partial differential equations of the full hydrodynamic model, providing thereby a practical engineering tool for improved charge carrier transport simulations at high electric fields and frequencies. The discretization scheme preserves the conservation and transportive properties of the equations. The hydrodynamic model is able to describe inertia effects which play an increasing role in different fields of microand optoelectronics, where simplified charge transport models like the drift-diffusion model and the energy balance model are no longer applicable. Results of extensive numerical simulations are shown for a two-dimensional MESFET device. A comparison of the hydrodynamic model to the commonly used energy balance model is given and the accuracy of the results is discussed.