Process simulation tools are valuable for developing and optimizing the fabrication steps of miniaturized electronic devices. In the past decades, the availability of suitable simulation tools like TCAD has been one of the enablers for the rapid shrinking of ULSI-MOSFETs according to Moore’s law. Now the scaling of devices reaches atomic dimensions and the predictive power of established simulation approaches based on a continuum description of matter is increasingly limited. Thus, process simulation tools must consider the real atomistic structure of electronic materials, its interfaces and all its nonidealities like defects, strain, or fluctuating compositions.
Schematic view of an atomistic film growth model
The ultimate goal of process simulation is the prediction of device properties from process conditions. This requires the prediction of the structure of grown or processed films as a function of the growth or processing conditions. The electronic properties of the grown film are a function of its atomistic structure. Electronic properties are computed by electronic structure methods. Finally, quantum device simulations will close the cycle from process conditions to device properties. In figure 1, we illustrate such a cycle schematically. However, establishing such a simulation cycle is still challenging. In this presentation, we show some approaches to reach this goal by focusing on different process and growth simulations, illustrated by application examples. The following step from material structure to device characteristics is topic of many papers on electronic structure calculation, quantum transport simulation and nano-device modeling.
More details will be presented at the NUSOD-20 conference.
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