Complex integrated circuit designs and constantly shrinking device dimensions increase the need for complete and accurate simulation of the electrical, mechanical and thermal behavior of devices and their fabrication processes in semiconductor engineering. In order to avoid time-consuming and expensive real-world factory experiments, Technology CAD (TCAD) Systems try to support the process and device engineer by providing a virtual integrated factory equipped with process and device simulators and common framework facilities like device structure editing or visualization.
The Viennese Integrated System for Technology CAD Applications (VISTA) is such a TCAD framework, exhibiting a task, tool and data level, the latter of which is dealt with in this work. A data level provides common data handling services to the framework and its tools and takes care of data representation, logistics, communication and semantics.
An analysis of data and data flows occurring in the TCAD field is presented, from which general requirements on a data level are derived. Existing concepts are investigated, and the VISTA approach to a data level architecture is compared to these. The VISTA data level architecture with its interchange format approach is then explored in detail, and the Profile Interchange Format (PIF) in its textual and binary manifestations is introduced.
Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) techniques are indispensable in the implementation of a TCAD framework in general, and the VISTA data level in particular. The benefits and advantages of CASE tools and their importance in the VISTA data level implementation are pointed out, and the VISTA CASE tools for automatic code generation are presented. The implementation of the PIF Application Interface (PAI) is discussed and evaluated.
High-level libraries aid the TCAD tool developer by allowing programming in high-level abstractions. An overview of VISTA's high-level libraries is presented, and the VISTA Grid Support (GRS) and its object-oriented approach to library design is discussed in detail.
The integration of the capacitance simulator VLSICAP is presented as an example of how a conventional simulator is integrated on the data level into VISTA. Two industrial problems - a microstrip line and a parasitic MOSFET - are investigated using the integrated simulator VLSICAP and the framework facilities. The text concludes with an outlook on future directions for data level development.