Trends, demands and challenges in TCAD

Currently, TCAD is most heavily used in the device research and process integration phases of a technology life cycle. However, a major trend visible in the industry is the demand to apply TCAD tools far beyond the integration phase into manufacturing and yield optimization. Short IC product lifetimes make fast yield ramp-up critical for being profitable and TCAD tools build a bridge between IC design and manufacturing. Another major trend is to use TCAD to evaluate layout dependent stress variations and account for these variations in the design flow of standard cells, libraries and custom ICs. This article gives an overview of those trends and addresses resulting challenges for TCAD models and tools.