Cross-Sectional Viewer in Expert

Expert is an extremely powerful circuit layout editing tool with the integrated ability of geometric design rule checking and LVS design verification.

IC technologies continue to develop and become more and more complex. With increase of complexity in the contemporary design processes the designer must have knowledge not only of layout design, but in simulation and manufacturing as well. The more the design engineer knows about the process with respect to layout and technology, the higher the performance he can design.

Cross-Sectional Viewer is a tool within Expert to simulate the cross sectional view of ICs along an arbitrary drawn cut-line on the layout. Cross-sectional Viewer is a link between the layout and the resulting device. It allows the designer to examine cross-sections of the device being designed. Cross-sectional drawings are useful for understanding design rules, parasitic coupling and other design and fabrication problems.

The current Expert’s implementation of Cross-Sectional Viewer is based on the simplified simulation of the process steps using rough processing parameters from Expert technology file.

Future enhancements of the Cross-Sectional Viewer will include interfacing with SILVACO process and device simulation tools that will allow the users to obtain physically accurate representations of the physical structure of ICs in the problematic areas of the layout.