Detailed Device Simulators

Commercial simulators: EM,

semiconductor devices, Comsol
 Commercial Simulator for Detailed Device
Modeling
• A lot of very powerful device level tools.
• Commercial tools that handle meshing,
solution and analysis
• Three examples
– EM – Finite Difference Time Domain and HFSS
– Comsol – multi-physics
– Semiconductors – Sentuarus
 First Example is Maxwell’s Equations
 The basic set of equations describing the electromagnetic world

Gauss’s law D  v

Gauss’s law for magnetism B 0
B
Faraday’s law E 
t
D
Ampere’s law H  J 
t

Constitutive relations D  E and B  H

Commercial software packages
 Commercial software packages

Finite element method (FEM) Method of Moments (MoM)

ADS Momentum

HFSS

Transmission line matrix (TLM) Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD)

CST Microstripes
FDTD Overview – Cells
 A three-dimensional problem space is composed of cells

5/60
FDTD Overview – Material grid
 A three-dimensional problem space is composed of cells

6/60
Transformation from Time-Domain to Frequency-Domain
 Results can be obtained for frequency domain using Fourier Transform

A low-pass filter S11

S21
Incident plane wave

8/60
Scattering Problems

 
 H inc  H scat    Einc  Escat  H inc  0 Einc
t t

A dielectric sphere
9/60
Scattering from a Dielectric Sphere

10/60
 Wireless Personal Communications Devices

Source: Allen Taflove, “A Perspective on the 40-Year History of FDTD Computational Electrodynamics,”
Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES) Conference, Miami, Florida, March 15, 2006. 11/60
Can be found at http://www.ece.northwestern.edu/ecefaculty/Allen1.html
 Also for optics: Focusing Plasmonic Lens

Source: Allen Taflove, “A Perspective on the 40-Year History of FDTD Computational Electrodynamics,”
Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES) Conference, Miami, Florida, March 15, 2006.
Can be found at http://www.ece.northwestern.edu/ecefaculty/Allen1.html
 Different Methods of
Electromagnetic Analysis

MO
M

13
 Example of Adaptive meshing

Waveguide Filter at right (symmetry along top

face) shows effect of mesh adaptation. The
region between posts has a denser mesh, due to
the superposition of reflected energy found in the
solution process.

Post
Post

14
 Some Typical High-Frequency Electromagnetic
Applications

Antenna
Waveguide Components

RF Integrated Circuits EMC

15
 EM Summary
• Lots of choices – you will use Maxwell-2D
• Lots of data
– Fields
– Terminal currents/voltages
– S parameters
• Typically slow
• Often hard to learn
 Multi-physics - Comsol

• Multi-physics is the combination

of several physics phenomena
when describing a process
• In modeling and simulations,
these descriptions are based on
the laws of physics
• There is one precise way to
present the laws of physics, and The description of a loudspeaker involves
electromagnetic fields and forces, structural
that is by means of differential analysis, and acoustic pressure fields in the
one model.

equations*
* Feynman “Famous Lectures”
 COMSOL’s Methodology for Modeling Multiphysics
Phenomena

• Development goals:
– To create a software where
scientists and engineers can
formulate any system of partial
differential equations (PDEs)
based on the laws of physics

Microwave-thermal-structural
– To formulate user interfaces, multiphysics couplings in a
waveguide circulator
based on the above methods, for
the most common areas in
applied physics and engineering
 COMSOL’s Methodology for Modeling Multiphysics Phenomena
Example: Fully Coupled Physics with Joule Heating and CFD

• Definition in the
graphical user interface Fluid dynamics Thermal analysis Electromagentic
and heat transfer in solids fields

• Automatic assembly
using equation interpretation
Assembling of equations
and then discretization and discretization
using FEM

• Solution with direct or

iterative solvers using a fully
coupled system utilizing a Solution of the
damped Newton method coupled system
 COMSOL’s Methodology for Modeling Multiphysics Phenomena
Example: Fully Coupled Physics with Joule Heating and CFD

• Temperature field defined in both solid and fluid domains

• The fluid flow equations are only defined in the fluid domain
• The static electric field is only defined in the solid domain

Outlet

Metal wire heated

using an electric current

Inlet
Automatic meshing with
tetrahedral elements.
Quadrilateral and prism
elements are also available as
well as manual settings and
adaptive meshing.
The slice plot shows
temperature.

The arrows show the

velocity field. Note the
expansion due to the
temperature increase.

The boundary plot on the The solution takes 12

hot wire shows the electric minutes on a Toshiba Tecra
potential. laptop. It requires about
600 Mb of RAM including a
300 Mb footprint.
The deformation and
stresses are mostly caused
by thermal expansion. The
fluid forces have little
effect.
 Other Multiphysics Coupling Examples in COMSOL

• Electromagnetic wave propagation and

structural analysis
– Stress-optical effects
After annealing at
high temperatures,
mismatch in thermal
expansion between
the silica and silicon
layers results in
thermally induced
stresses at the
operating
temperature. These
stresses influence the
refractive index.
 Other Multiphysics Coupling Examples in COMSOL

• Equation-based modeling of semiconductors

– Electrons and hole concentration fields coupled to
Poisson’s equations
Distributed Model of a MOS
SPICE model of transistor including
an integrated drift-diffusion of
bipolar electron (n) and
transistor. The hole (p)
model couples concentrations,
the electric coupled to the
potential for Poisson equation.
four different
layers (four
equations) with
a circuit model.
 Semiconductor solvers
• Solve basic equations

• Plus many additions

– Quantum effects
– Energy conservation
– Thermal distribution
– Photon and particle
fluxes
• As an example
Sentaurus (Synopsis)
for a radiation
detector.
 3D detectors
• 3D detector – photodiode detector with
electrode columns passing through substrate
– Small electrode spacing gives fast collection, low
Vdep +ve -ve +ve

– Radiation hardness
+ve +ve
n-type
electrode
electrons

Planar
n-type
electrode 3D
300
µm
electrons

Lightly
doped
p-type holes
holes
silicon p-type
electrode
p-type
electrode
Around
Particle
30µm
Particle
-ve
 Sentaurus Device Editor
• New feature of Sentaurus TCAD
• Start with sde
• Can work in 2D and 3D modes
• Has functions for complicated
shapes like circles, spheres etc.
– In command files or MDraw, these
must be built up point-by-point,
which is very inconvenient
• Has a built-in command line, and
can be controlled with scripts
– In 3D, easier than using mouse!
– Possible to insert parameters
using
Workbench
Sentaurus Device Editor
 Mesh tool
• noffset3d can be run
using command files or
through Structure Editor,
just like mesh
• Other mesh tool produce
axis aligned meshes
• This tool produces
unstructured meshes
– More effective for creating
curved structures
• Input command files
more complicated – see
“Mesh Generation Tools
User Guide”
 Sentaurus Device
• Takes mesh, applies semiconductor equations and boundary
conditions (in discrete form) and solves
• Physics models: Works by modelling electrostatic potential
(Poisson’s equation) and carrier continuity
Poisson  s .E   s   q( p  n  N )
2

Electron n 1
 .J n  (G  R ) where J p q n E  qD p p
continuity t q
Hole p  1 J n q n E  qDnn
 .J p  (G  R ) where
continuity t q
See Fichtner, Rose, Bank, “Semiconductor Device Simulation”, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices 30 (9), pp1018, 1983

• Different versions of physics models available

– Different models of mobility, bandgap…
– Generation and recombination rates may include avalanche effects,
charge generation by high-energy particles…
 3D detectors
Electric field pattern in a new device structure
Detail of electric field (V/cm) around top of
Structure of double-sided 3D device double-sided 3D device (100V bias)
Seperate contact to p-stop 0
each n+ column Inner radius 10um Electric
Outer radius 15um 20000
13
Dose 10 cm
-2 field (V/cm)
00
25 130000
10 90000
Oxide layer 60000
50 40000
00
30000
n+ column 20000
250um length 20
10000
10um diameter 0
10
p- substrate n+ 00

Z (um)
300um thick, 0
30
doping 7*10 11cm-3

p+ column
250um length
10um diameter 40
0
20 0 0

50

p+ 130000
On back side:
Oxide layer covered with metal 60
55um pitch
All p+ columns connected together 0 10 20 30 40
30 00 0 D (um)

40 00
40 0

00
 Semiconductor Device Summary
• A few choices
• Lots of Data
– n, p and V
– Currents, charges
– Heat generation
– Etc.
• Typically slow
• Hard to Use
• Lots of physical insight if are smart enough
• Remember all “models are wrong”