The Density Gradient Method has been implemented as a simulation example for DEVSIM. This method is a quantum mechanical correction for carrier densities near a semiconductor/insulator interface.
The example scripts simulate both a 1D and 2D MOSCAP structure. The scripts generate plots to visualize the results.
It can be downloaded from https://github.com/devsim/devsim_density_gradient.
Semiconductor Device Simulation Using DEVSIM is now available from our site.
Abstract:
DEVSIM is a technology computer aided design (TCAD) simulation software. It is released under an open source license. The software solves user defined partial differential equations (PDEs) on 1D, 2D, and 3D meshes. It is implemented in C++ using custom code and a collection of open source libraries. The Python scripting interface enables users to setup and control their simulations.
In this chapter, we present an overview of the tool. This is followed with a bipolar junction transistor (BJT) design and characterization example. A collection of open source tools were used to create a simulation mesh, and visualize results
The Python scripts for simulation are here:
https://github.com/devsim/devsim_bjt_example
The DEVSIM source code is now released under the Apache License, Version 2.0. It was previously under the LGPL 3.0. The license change is intended to promote adoption of the software and attract new contributors. A brief synopsis of the license is here.
The spirit of the Apache License is also more in line with the license terms packages that DEVSIM relies upon. More information about DEVSIM is available from https://www.devsim.org.
One of the other sites I manage is TCAD Central – https://www.tcadcentral.com. It is a resource concerning TCAD and semiconductor device simulation. Some of the content is no longer current. Please let me know if you have any updates or news in this blog or on the TCAD Central site.
An interesting project from the IuE Summer of Code 2014 is a collection of 3D CAD models. On the CAD models page are examples of these devices.
Using the FreeCAD open source CAD modeling software. The student created these models from examples in the literature. There are also tutorials at the bottom of the page for building a Double-Gate MOSFET and Tri-Gate devices.
The NanoTCAD ViDES team has announced their new website, http://www.2dmatter.com.
From their announcement:
The website is intended to be a useful tool in order to link to all the recent publications concerned with Two-dimensional materials from the main journals in the field, i.e., (up to now) Physical Review Letters, Physical Review B, Applied Physics Letters, IEEE Transaction on Electron Devices, IEEE Electron Device Letters, IEEE Nanotechnology, Proceedings of IEEE, Scientific Reports, Nature Nanotechnology, ACS NANO and Nano Letters.
Sandia National Labs is looking for a TCAD software engineer who is a US citizen and is able to get a security clearance. From their description:
We have an immediate technical staff opening for a semiconductor device modeling software developer with expertise in scientific programming for high performance computing. The position emphasizes algorithm design and enhancement to extend the capabilities and increase the efficiency of our large scale, parallel, drift-diffusion solver, which is a C++/object oriented program. The successful candidate will be part of a team of computational scientists and semiconductor device physicists. Additionally, the position requires extensive interaction with experimental and theoretical physicists and research engineers working on characterizing radiation effects in microelectronic devices and the resulting changes to circuit performance.
I was aware that they had a software named Charon, which leveraged a commercial tool. It looks like they may be developing their own replacement. A quick google search revealed a mailing list for their git archives of the tool. It appears the tool has been in development at least since January 2012.
Fujitsu announced the simulation of a 3030 Atom Nano device here on January 14th, 2013. The simulation took 20 hours on their supercomputer to simulate the electrical properties of graphene and an insulating layer, using OpenMX Material Explorer.
Even more interesting is the news that OpenMX is an open source tool available from openmx-square.org under the terms of the GPL.
Sefer Bora Lişesivdin announced the release of Aestimo GPL 1D Schrödinger-Poisson solver last month. From his announcement on LinkedIn:
Aestimo Team is proud to release the version 0.9 of Aestimo 1D Self-consistent Schrödinger-Poisson Solver. This version includes many bugfixes, speed improvements, cython code additions, rewritten VBMAT-V part to use numpy better, merging conduction and valance band calculations and more. Code is heavily modified and stabilized.
The software is available for download from: https://bitbucket.org/sblisesivdin/aestimo/downloads.
The DEVSIM Open Source TCAD Simulator is now available for download at SourceForge. Packages are available for:
For more information about the project, including source code availability, please visit https://www.devsim.org.