Application-Driven TCAD



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Application-Driven TCAD

Technology CAD is still predominantly application-driven ([14] [145]). The creation and maintenance of CAD tools and systems is not perceived as primary engineering discipline, but only as a means to reach the goal of solving a design problem. Hardly anyone ever created a tool or model for a yet uncritical technological step or modeled a technology that did not yet exist. Most new software is created to solve practical design problems. But as soon as a (significant) creation of software is involved in the solution of a TCAD application problem, one must realize that the current activity incorporates all two facets of methodology. Not only the design problem at hand is solved, but also new methodology has been created. This second aspect is too easily overlooked, resulting in a fatal disaster. The software which has been merely a byproduct often remains in use although it should, by all means, be discarded once the original design problem has been solved. Only the application, but not the software itself solves a problem, neither has the software been designed as a persistent solution or as reusable methodology. Only a thorough redesign would justify the prevalence of the accidentally created software, but experience shows that this redesign is delayed as long as possible, or often never takes place. It is just too easy to create software and just too hard to distinguish good from bad software.



Martin Stiftinger
Thu Oct 13 13:51:43 MET 1994