Checking simulation memory requirements
The simulation and memory requirements utility provides a summary of the key simulation properties and memory requirements of an RCWA simulation. The total amount of system memory (RAM) required is divided into memory required for initialization and meshing, running the simulation, and saving the results.
The Simulation and Memory Report has the following main fields:
- Number of Simulations: The total number of simulations run during an RCWA job. It is given by the Number of frequencies\(\times\)Number of Incident Angles\(\times\)Number of Directions.
- Number of k-vectors: The actual number of k-vectors that will be used by the simulation. It can be different from the number of k-vectors set by the user as an input in the Solver tab.
- Initialization and Mesh: The total amount of memory required to mesh all the interfaces of the simulation.
- Running simulation: The total amount of memory required to run a single simulation.
- Data saved to fsp file: The total amount of disk space required to save the simulation data. It increases when we enable more results from the Results tab of RCWA object and if monitors are used. This value also corresponds to the Memory details at the end of the report.
| Note: If you have an FDTD solver in addition to the RCWA solver in the same simulation then the Simulation and Memory Report shows the memory requirements for both the solvers in the same window one after the other. |
Automatic memory check feature
While running a simulation from the Finite Difference IDE (CAD/GUI) on your local computer, RCWA will verify if you have sufficient system memory to run the job. If you do not have the required amount of memory, you will be prompted with a warning: "Warning: Insufficient Memory" and "There is not enough system memory to run the simulation". From here you can choose to try and run the simulation anyways, or to abort the run. You can disable the automatic memory check either through the warning window or by opening "Check simulation and memory requirements", and unchecking "Auto check simulation memory".
Resolving insufficient memory issue
You will be required to run the simulation on a machine that has sufficient memory. Unlike FDTD, RCWA simulation runs with a single process and can not be distributed over multiple nodes. As a result, distributed computing is not a solution to the memory issue in RCWA. For more information, please visit RCWA Resource Configuration.
See also
Compute resource configuration use cases
Resource configuration elements and controls
Resource configuration for Lumerical solvers running with a single process