TCAD Simulation of Novel Semiconductor Devices

Abstract

Simulation of conventional and emerging electronic devices using Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) tools has been an essential part of the semiconductor industry as well as academic research. Computational efficiency and accuracy of the numerical modeling are the key criteria on which quality and usefulness of a TCAD tool are ascertained. Further, the ability of the tools to incorporate different modeling paradigms and to be applicable to a wide range of device architectures and operating conditions is essential. In this paper, we provide an overview of the new device simulator NESS (Nano-Electronic Software Simulator) developed at the University of Glasgow’s Device Modelling Group. It is a fast and modular TCAD tool with flexible architecture and structure generation capabilities, and contains different modules including classical, semi-classical, and quantum transport solvers, mobility calculation, kinetic Monte-Carlo and others. NESS can also take into account various sources of statistical variability in nanodevices and can perform simulations of thousands of microscopically different devices created by the structure generator. This state-of-the-art tool is designed to be open source and is being made available to the device engineering community at large for active collaboration and development.