Mar 28, 2007

HiSIM model included in another simlator

Magma FineSim SPICE Supports STARC HiSIM Model with Proven 20x Faster Circuit Simulation and Nearly Exact Correlation to Silicon. Or so they say in their web. See the full press release for more details. However, I love one of the sentences: "STARC's mission is to contribute to the growth of the Japanese semiconductor industry by developing leading-edge system-on-a-chip (SoC) design technologies.". Well, I would think that their primary mission is creating value for they investors, but one never knows. Now seriously, it is good to see that people is beginning to provide support (or implementations) of HiSIM. I only hope that foundries will follow the path, instead of being stuck with good (well, perhaps not so much), old (yes it is) BSIM3.1. I know this is a version of many years ago, but I can promise you that I've been playing with a 120nm technology using it.

By the way, by the moment it seems that more people is implementing HiSIM than PSP... curious, isn't it?

Mar 27, 2007

Call for Grant applications at SRC

SRC-GRC is calling for grant applications in Cross-disciplinary Semiconductor Research. The role of this program is to stimulate non-traditional thinking about the issues facing the semiconductor industry. It is intended to seed new research and programs for the SRC-GRC and SRC-FCRP. Consistent with the incubator role of the initiative, these will be 1 year non-overhead bearing grants at a funding level of $40K.

The scope of this solicitation is Nanoscale CMOS-Based Architectures. The challenge: Sustaining CMOS value progression through functional scaling and system design. The deadline: may, 1st. In principle, this is not for compact models, but I think that a good proposal including compact modeling could be redacted. Why? Because new devices are required to address the challenges of the next years and there is no way to do it without good compact models. So, at least a part of a sensible proposal should include some compact modeling (if nothing more, some way to go from compact device models to compact functional models... otherwise no real achivements will be obtained but only some old techniques re-edited)

By the way, IBM India is looking for Compact Model Engineers. Have a look at their web.

Mar 23, 2007

Another blog

I've found another blog about semiconductors. It is basically about technology news, but it is quite interesting to look at. You can reach it here (by the way, the name is Semiconductor Highlights). It is not frequentely updated, but it has a long history. In any case, if any of you, dear hipothetical readers, feels like suggesting another blog, don't hesitate to post it here...

Mar 20, 2007

DCIS'07

The last call for papers has been issued for the DCIS'07. This conference has evolved from its origins, more than two decades ago, into an important international meeting for researches in the highly active fields of micro and nano electronics circuits and integrated systems. It provides an excellent forum to present and investigate the emerging challenges in modelling, design, implementation and test of circuits and systems. Experts from both industry and academia have the chance to discuss the demands and solutions for current applications. Strong scientific, technical and personal relationships have been developed in the frame of this event. Moreover, there will be at least one session dedicated to modelling. So, it is a very good opportunity to visit Sevilla!

DCIS 2007 will take place at Sevilla. Last editions were at Barcelona (2006), Lisboa (2005), Bordeaux (2004), Ciudad Real (2003), Santander (2002), Porto (2001), Montpellier (2000) and Palma de Mallorca (1999). DCIS 2007 will be organized by the Institute of Microelectronics of Sevilla, IMSE-CNM.

Mar 16, 2007

MIGAS'07 Summer School will focus on Multi-Physics and Multi-Scale Simulation

The International Summer School on Advanced Microelectronics (MIGAS) has become probably the top summer school held in Europe in the field of semiconductor devices. MIGAS is organized by the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) and the Center for Innovation in Micro & NanoTechnology (MINATEC). The venue is always a beautiful town or resort in the Alps close to Grenoble. This year MIGAS'07 (June 24-29) will take place in Autrans, a well-known alpine resort, offering many kind of outdoor opportunities: hiking, mountain climbing, mountain-biking,...

Every year MIGAS addresses a different topic. This year, MIGAS'07 (10th Session) will be devoted to Multi-Physics and Multi-Scale Simulation for NanoElectronics.

It is well known that traditional modeling tools are not suitable to simulate the behaviour of nanoelectronic devices. The invited lecturers will explain new methods to model nanoscale devices:

-Non-equilibrium Green's functions methods (M.P. Anantram, Waterloo, Canada)
-Ab-initio methods (X. Blase, Lyon, France)
-Wigner functions methods (P. Dollfus, Paris, France)
-Monte Carlo methods (D. Esseni, Udine, Italy)
-Kp methods (F. Michelini, Marseille, France)
-Tight-binding methods (Y.M. Niquet, Grenoble, France)
-Deterministic solution of the Boltzmann Transport Equation (C. Jungemann, Munich, Germany)

In addition, there will be lectures on nanoscale device process simulation (M. Jaraiz, Valladolid, Spain), quantum transport theory (D.K. Ferry, Arizona, USA) , noise in nanoelectronics (G. Iannaccone, Pisa, Italy), and also characterisation techniques (S. Cristoloveanu, Grenoble, France) . Finally, I will conduct a lecture on the compact modeling of nanoscale MOSFETs.

No doubt MIGAS'07 will be a very interesting opportunity for students and researchers to become familiar with the new modeling methods proposed for the novel nanoelectronic devices.





Mar 14, 2007

Technology news

I've found a curious article at the EE Times Europe (a nice journal, by the way). The title is "Graphene transistor to rival silicon, say researchers". Some researchers at the University of Manchester and at the Max Planck Institute claim that they have developed a transistor that is 1 atom thin. Read the full story at the link above, but I've loved the last sentence: "Professor Geim indicated graphene based circuits would not come of age before 2025 and till then silicon based devices would predominate.". This is long-term research... Now, seriously, what they are developing, if it can be used industrialy, will be a revolution, bringing single electron devices to life. However, we shall have to wait 18 years more.

Mar 13, 2007

Links

I've found some interesting links about Compact Modeling. The first one is the homepage of Dr. Zhou Xing, at the Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). A quite interesting page, with links to many of his papers and works.

The second link is more educational, and contains the material of a course in the "Grupo de Electrónica del Estado Sólido de la Universidad Simón Bolívar" (Caracas, VENEZUELA). The only drawback of this excellent page is that it is in a mixture of Spanish and English. However, the completeness of the page fully justifies a visit.