Multi-dimensional simulation of MCT structures

Numerical simulation of the fabrication steps and the electrical behavior has become an invaluable tool in the design and optimization of new semiconductor device structures. The field of process and device modeling has made important contributions to our understanding of device concepts and technologyperformance tradeoffs. Through the use of efficient modeling tools, this paradigm offers significant cost reductions with additional improvements in the overall design time. While the use of numerical modeling tools has been pioneered in the more classical "VLSI" field, there have also been considerable efforts during the last few years to achieve similar results in the area of power semiconductor devices [I]. During the last few years, we have developed a software environment for process and device simulation studies dedicated to semiconductor power devices such as MCT, FCT, GTO and IGBT structures. While we tried to automate the program usage as much as possible, robustness and accuracy were important concerns in the design. Our aDDroach centers around an integrated approach of process, device modeling and analysis tools such as graphics postprocessors. Figure 1 summarizes this concept by schematically illustrating the interplay between process and device simulators and graphics tools. One should realize that each part of this modeling hierarchy contains large software packages that were developed over several years. In this paper, we want to illustrate the power of our integrated approach for the case of a complex MCT device. We have taken the MCT as a representative example of a modern power device. A three-dimensional picture of this MCT is presented in Fig. 2. (Reference [2] gives a more detailed description of this structure and summarizes technological concepts and measurement results.) Here we shall concentrate on the modeling aspects of these structures, in particular the various software tools that were developed. Suucture U Generator (3d) Technology Data 1 Process Simulator