1.3 The Future of ECAD/TCAD

The state of the art technologies pose very difficult modeling problems. This limits the accuracy of the traditional simulation tools of ECAD frameworks. One simple, yet very important example, is the extraction of integrated circuit interconnection parasitics. Usually, such tools can only extract overlap capacitances using a parallel plate model. With sub-micron interconnect lines the results obtained by doing so, as will be demonstrated in this work, are completely wrong.

Usage of TCAD tools can overcome these problems and prove to be very useful in the design of the most critical parts of integrated circuits. A global perspective of how TCAD tools can be inserted in the integrated circuit design flow is depicted in Figure 1.1. For clarity, there are feedback loops not shown, and some of the blocks refered above, are intentionally omitted. An advantage of this approach is that it allows for the interaction of layout, technology and circuit parameters, so the best global compromise can be found.

In the future a tightening of both TCAD and ECAD is foreseen and maybe one day they will merge completely.

Figure 1.1: ECAD/TCAD block diagram.