Second-Order Control Volume Finite Element Method for Self-Heating Effects Simulation of Semiconductor Devices

A higher-order control volume finite element method for triangular elements is proposed to simulate the self-heating effects of semiconductor devices. In the scheme, the currents of carrier continuity equations are expressed by the second-order accurate fluxes on the triangle edges incorporating second-order vector basis functions. Although the developed scheme is not monotone in theory, the numerical results reveal that the higher-order discretization approach is exceptionally robust and accurate, and the usage of coarser mesh is allowed compared with the first order method.