Department of Electronics. University of Valladolid

Atomistic Process Simulation at e-UVA

Kinetic Monte Carlo Process Simulations

Introduction

Atomistic process modeling, a kinetic Monte Carlo simulation technique, has the interest of being both conceptually simple and extremely powerful. Instead of reaction equations it is based on the definition of the interactions between individual atoms and defects. Those interactions can be derived either directly from molecular dynamics or first principles calculations, or from experiments. The limit to its use is set by the size dimensions it can handle, but the level of performance achieved by even PC’s, together with the design of efficient simulation schemes, has revealed it as a good candidate for building the next generation of process simulators, as an extension of existing continuum modeling codes into the deep submicron size regime.

Why atomistic KMC Process Simulators

Compared to standard Continuum Process Simulators, the advantages of atomistic KMC Process Simulators are:

·         Direct relation to microscopic data (from ab-initio or from experiments)

·         Multiple mechanisms are included simultaneously with no simulation-time cost

·         No convergence problems (there are no equations)

·         Intrinsically three-dimensional.

·         Specially efficient when dimensions shrink

·         Highly non-equilibrium conditions are not an issue.

·         Discrete character of dopants (local inhomogeneities).

·         No topology problems with moving boundaries.

·         Capture cross sections of extended defects directly given by the geometry.

·         Intuitive view of the microstructure (easy comparison to TEM micrographs).

DADOS: An Atomistic KMC Simulator for advanced Silicon processing

DADOS (Diffusion of Atomistic Defects Object-oriented Simulator) is the atomistic KMC Process Simulator developed by Martin Jaraiz and coworkers at the Department of Electronics of the University of Valladolid. It is suitable for the simulation of front-end processes in advanced, deep-submicron Silicon-based technologies. DADOS can be used either as a research or a TCAD tool.

·         For TCAD use, DADOS is commercialized by Synopsys Inc., CA, as a core element of the Sentaurus Process simulator. Please refer to the web page of Synopsys for details about the commercial program.

·         For research purposes, DADOS is used as the engine of UVAS (University of Valladolid Atomistic Simulator), a simulation enviroment (running under MS-Windows) that controls DADOS and allows the extraction of simulation results.

UVAS

Snapshot of the  UVAS-DADOS enviroment

Help and tutorial for UVAS-DADOS

A Help system (under MS-Windows) for the KMC simulator DADOS, using the UVAS  interface, can be downloaded here. For proper functioning, you have to download it on your hard disk (and “unblock it” in Properties/General: Unblock), not to execute on the web.

 

Front page of  UVAS-DADOS Help

 

A tutorial, using representative examples, has been also developed and can be used on-line, clicking here.

Results

·         Conference presentations:  click here

·         Papers about the simulation technique and its capabilities:  click here

·         Scientific and technical publications using DADOS:  click here

·         Other publications related to silicon processing (but not directly involving KMC simulations): click here

Contacts

·  Martin Jaraiz. buzon

·  Lourdes Pelaz. buzon

·  Jose-Emiliano Rubio. buzon

·  Pedro Castrillo. buzon

·  Ruth Pinacho. buzon

·  María Aboy. buzon

·  Pedro López. buzon

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