5.1.5.1 Semiconductor Wafer Descriptions

Since no standard modeling description for a semiconductor wafer has been established so far, one is forced to use each simulation tool's native wafer description, and to perform a conversion between various formats. Figure 5.1

lists the wafer descriptions of the VISTA tool set (PIF) [16], the ISE tool set (DF-ISE) [40], and the wafer description format used by TSUPREM (TIF) [94]. Moreover, Figure 5.1 also lists the conversion tools which are available to convert a description of a wafer into another one.

Example 5.3 shows a simulation-flow-model which can be used to establish a conversion from PIF format to a wafer description using TIF conventions. The application of such a model would typically be inside of a network-model where a transition from one wafer description to another has to be established. It should be stressed that the simulation-flow-model offers ample flexibility to perform additional manipulations on the wafer description as it is sometimes necessary. For example, in some situations it is necessary to re-grid the wafer before the conversion tool is able to process it, since it needs a boundary conforming mesh. In this case the gridding step could easily be integrated into the tool-flow of the simulation-flow-model of Example 5.3.