As shown in Table 4.1, some tools are capable of
providing a number of different services to the simulation
environment. For example, the SKETCH program serves as a simple
deposition tool as well as a lithography tool, depending on a command
line option; the TSUPREM4 [Tec95]
simulator is capable of simulating a number of different fabrication
processes, which are specified in an input deck.
From the framework's
point of view, only the service rendered is of interest, not the
executable invoked. To reflect this fact, a service provided by a tool
is called a tool application.
Figure 4.2 shows the relation
between tool applications and tools in the light of the SKETCH simulator.
On the other hand, a particular service may need more than one tool to
be called in a strict order.
On the right side of Figure 4.2,
a tool application is shown that provides an
encapsulation of all simulator calls and intermediate data
manipulations required for an oxidation simulation
.
Figure 4.2:
Applications and Tools.
A single tool may used for several distinct applications,
a single application may call for several tools to be invoked.