Agilent Technologies Offers First Commercial Package to Extract Device Models from Semiconductor Process Targets

Target Modeling Package for IC-CAP Enables Faster IC Design

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced the first commercially available package that extracts models from semiconductor manufacturing process targets. An option for the 2008 release of Agilent’s Integrated Circuit Characterization and Analysis Program (IC-CAP) software, the package enables designers to develop device-simulation models earlier in the design cycle for faster overall IC design.

The Agilent Target Modeling Package is designed specifically for extracting Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) device models from semiconductor process targets. Process targets are a simplified set of electrical quantities that conveniently describe the performance and behavior of a semiconductor technology. CMOS devices are used in a wide range of consumer products such as microprocessors, memory and communication applications.

“Creating device-simulation models for advanced process technologies is problematic because physical wafers that meet specifications with acceptable yield often are not produced for months to years,” said Roberto Tinti, product marketing manager with Agilent’s EEsof EDA division. “Our Target Modeling Package addresses this by providing an easy way to extract CMOS device models from a reduced set of Process Control Monitor data before wafers from a new process are produced. Our customers tell us that extracting simulation models before a process matures can save them several months in a typical design cycle.”

Well known in the IC design industry for its flexible and open architecture, Agilent’s IC-CAP provides a powerful and efficient software environment for extracting models from Process Control Monitor data for new semiconductor manufacturing processes and for re-centering existing simulation models to account for shifts in more mature processes.

The Target Modeling Package has a Windows(r)-style graphical user interface for importing and managing data from Excel spreadsheets, running simulations and creating data plots and automatically generated, customizable HTML-based reports. Designers also can add their own methods-, model- and circuit-definitions to the package. As with all IC-CAP extraction packages, the Target Modeling Package includes direct simulation support for Agilent’s Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA software, as well as support for Cadence Design Systems’ Spectre and Synopsys’ HSPICE simulators.