MOUNTAIN VIEW, USA: Synopsys Inc. announced that Toshiba Semiconductor Co. has adopted Synopsys' Sentaurus TCAD software for simulating etching and deposition in the development of next-generation devices.

As a result, Toshiba is able to reduce research and development time and trial production costs, while optimizing next-generation device structures and yield, by quantitatively estimating process margin before and during volume production.

With shrinking device feature sizes, physically based simulation of deposition, etching and other topographical processes becomes increasingly important. This is because even minor changes to device shapes can have a major impact on process margin and electrical performance for many kinds of devices.

Moreover, deposition and etching processes can also impact macroscopic features due to micro-loading effects. Sentaurus TCAD software, specifically Sentaurus Process and Device, use detailed physical models for simulating the fabrication process and electrical behavior of a wide range of semiconductor devices, and are broadly used in the research, development and optimization of semiconductor technologies. Sentaurus Topography extends these capabilities to physical etching and deposition.

The Sentaurus TCAD platform provides a comprehensive capability to simulate detailed and realistic process structures for subsequent electrical analysis by Sentaurus Device. In addition to the core etching and deposition models, Synopsys and Toshiba have also been collaborating to incorporate Toshiba's surface reaction kinetics modeling technology into Sentaurus Topography, allowing specific gas chemistries to be included as part of the simulation of topography modifying processes. This advanced module is expected to be
commercially available in the second half of 2008 as part of the Sentaurus Topography offering.