Calculation of contact currents in device simulation

The authors present an accurate new method for the calculation of the contact currents in a device simulation program which is applicable to arbitrarily shaped device geometries. The method is based on the evaluation of a volume integral of the calculated current densities over the whole device area with a suitably chosen weight function. Different types of weight functions are discussed and compared with the commonly used line integral along the contact. The results are illustrated by three examples: an I/sup 2/L memory cell, an MOS transistor, and a resistor with a reverse-biased diode.< >