July 27, 2005 -- Silvaco International has announced the availability of full TMA compatibility in its 5.10.0.R release of Stanford-based Athena Process Simulators and Atlas Device Simulators.
Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) was originally pioneered at Stanford University under grants from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) during late 1970s and 1980s. It was licensed to and commercialized exclusively by Technology Modeling Associates (TMA) and Silvaco. TMA was later acquired by Avant! Corp. which was then acquired by Synopsys. In October 2004, Synopsys also acquired Integrated Systems Engineering (ISE), a TCAD provider based in Switzerland. Synopsys announced its future TCAD products would be based on the ISE software.
"Silvaco has been aggressively improving the original Stanford software to meet all the needs of our worldwide customers who develop state-of-the-art technologies," said Dr. Ivan Pesic, CEO of Silvaco.
Silvaco will continue to provide advanced TCAD technologies based on the latest physical models for process and device simulation. Silvaco is the only company dedicated to exclusively support the Stanford TCAD legacy. Switching to Silvaco TCAD means that TMA customers do not have to recalibrate their model coefficients, re-establish their process and device simulation flows developed over many years, and learn new software.
The Athena Process Simulation Framework enables process and integration engineers to develop and optimize semiconductor manufacturing processes. Athena provides an easy-to-use, modular, and extensible platform for simulating ion implantation, diffusion, etching, deposition, lithography, oxidation, and silicidation of semiconductor materials. It replaces costly wafer experiments with simulations to deliver shorter development cycles and higher yields.
The Atlas Device Simulation Framework enables device technology engineers to simulate the electrical, optical, and thermal behavior of semiconductor devices. Atlas provides a physics-based, easy-to-use, modular, and extensible platform to analyze DC, AC, and time domain responses for all semiconductor-based technologies in 2 and 3 dimensions.
The Virtual Wafer Fab is an integrated environment of TCAD software to automate and emulate physical wafer manufacturing. These integrated tools facilitate the input, execution, run-time optimization, and results processing of TCAD simulations into one flow managed through a common database.
Go to the Silvaco, Inc. website to find additional information.
