Page 104 - DLIS402_INFORMATION_ANALYSIS_AND_REPACKAGING

Unit 4: Technical Digestion

The dominance of interconnects for giga-scale integration (transistor counts in O(billion)) and Notes
clocking frequencies in O (10 gigahertz)) have mandated the development of tools and methodologies
that embrace patterning by electro-magnetic simulations—both for optical patterns and electronic
and optical interconnect performance modelling—as well as circuit-level modelling. This broad
range of issues at the device and interconnect levels, including links to underlying patterning and
processing technologies, is summarized in and provides a conceptual framework for the discussion
that now follows.
Above diagram is a hierarchy of process, device and circuit levels of simulation tools. On each side
of the boxes indicating modelling level are icons that schematically depict representative applications
for TCAD. The left side gives emphasis to Design For Manufacturing (DFM) issues such as: shallow-
trench isolation (STI), extra features required for phase-shift masking (PSM) and challenges for
multi-level interconnects that include processing issues of chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP),
and the need to consider electro-magnetic effects using electromagnetic field solvers. The right side
icons show the more traditional hierarchy of expected TCAD results and applications: complete
process simulations of the intrinsic devices, predictions of drive current scaling and extraction of
technology files for the complete set of devices and parasitics.

TCAD Providers
Current major suppliers of TCAD tools include Synopsys, Silvaco and Crosslight. The open source
GSS, Archimedes and Aeneas has some of the capabilities of the commercial products. TCAD Central
maintains an information resource for available TCAD software.

Make a thorough study on Modern TCAD.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. Full form of TCAD is ............ .
2. ............ and ............ are the essential building blocks of the integrated circuit design process.

4.3 Summary

• Technical digest movable Type is a powerful publishing and content management system
that stores website content and layout templates in a database (in our case, MySQL).
• Technology CAD (or Technology Computer Aided Design, or TCAD) is a branch of electronic
design automation that models semiconductor fabrication and semiconductor device operation.
• Technology files and design rules are essential building blocks of the integrated circuit design
process.
• The goals of TCAD start from the physical description of integrated circuit devices, considering
both the physical configuration and related device properties, and build the links between
the broad range of physics and electrical behavior models that support circuit design.

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