With the rapid developments in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) technology at both the chip and package level, the operating
frequencies are quickly reaching the vicinity of GHz and switching times are getting to the sub-nano second levels. The ever
increasing quest for high-speed applications has placed higher demands on interconnect performance and highlighted the previously
negligible effects of interconnects such as ringing, signal delay, distortion, reflections and crosstalk. As depicted by Figure
1, interconnects can exist at various levels of design hierarchy such as on-chip, packaging structures, multichip modules,
printed circuit boards and backplanes. In addition, the trend in the VLSI industry towards miniature designs, low power consumption
and increased integration of analog circuits with digital blocks has further complicated the issue of signal integrity analysis.
It is predicted that interconnects will be responsible for majority of signal degradation in high-speed systems [1]. High-speed
interconnect problems are not always handled appropriately by the conventional circuit simulators, such as SPICE [2]. If not
considered during the design stage, these interconnect effects can cause logic glitches which render a fabricated digital
circuit inoperable, or they can distort an analog signal such that it fails to meet specifications. Since extra iterations
in the design cycle are costly, accurate prediction of these effects is a necessity in high-speed designs. Hence it becomes
extremely important for designers to simulate the entire design along with interconnect subcircuits as efficiently as possible
while retaining the accuracy of simulation.