BSIM3 solves the numerical problems of previous models with the introduction of smoothing functions. It adopts a single equation to describe device characteristics in the operating regions. This approach eliminates the discontinuities in the I-V and C-V characteristics. The original model, BSIM3 evolved through three versions: BSIM3v1, BSIM3v2 and BSIM3v3. Both BSIM3v1 and BSIM3v2 had suffered from many mathematical problems and were replaced by BSIM3v3. The latter is the only surviving release and has itself a long revision history.

The following table summarizes the story of this model:

BSIM3v2 and 3v3 models has proved for accurate use in 0.18 (\mu m) technologies. The model is publicly available as source code form from University of California, Berkeley.

A detailed description is given in the user's manual available from here .

We recommend that you use only the most recent BSIM3 models (version 3.3.0), because it contains corrections to all known bugs. To achieve that, change the version parameter in your modelcard files to

VERSION = 3.3.0.

If no version number is given in the .model card, this (newest) version is selected as the default.

BSIM3v3.2.4 supports the extra model parameter lmlt on channel length scaling and is still used by many foundries today.

The older models will not be supported, they are made available for reference only.