AIST Adopts Silvaco’s TCAD Products for SiC Power Semiconductor Research

Key Drivers Include 3D Support, High Quality Meshing, Powerful MPI Enabled Solvers

Yokohama Japan, – August 25, 2015 – Silvaco Japan Co., Ltd. (Silvaco) announced that the Advanced Power Electronics Research Center of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), a national research and development organization, has adopted Silvaco’s TCAD tool for its SiC power semiconductor research.

AIST began research on wide-bandgap semiconductor materials such as SiC and GaN during the second half of the 1970s in the era of the Industrial Science and Technology Agency of the former Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and from the second half of the 1990s, AIST assumed a leading role in national projects aimed at establishing fundamental technologies for these new semiconductors. Worldwide energy consumption and electrification rates are predicted to increase steadily in the future, and it is important that we work on achieving a low-carbon society as a countermeasure against global warming. The goal is to establish technologies for electric power conversion and power devices based on wide-gap semiconductors such as SiC and GaN. Such technologies enable high-efficiency electric power conversion.

Kunihiro Sakamoto, Deputy Director of the Advanced Power Electronics Research Center, commented, “TCAD simulations are essential to the research on wide-gap semiconductors such as SiC and GaN. By doing simulations with varied parameters, such as the types of materials and device structures and doping of implanted impurities, device characteristics can be estimated before doing trials. This makes it possible to shorten turnaround time by reducing the number of manufacturing iterations and to improve the robustness of the device design. We look forward to even greater acceleration of our research by utilizing Silvaco’s TCAD products.”

Silvaco’s General Manager Yoshiharu Furui stated, “We are very pleased that AIST has adopted Silvaco’s TCAD products. Compound semiconductor simulation is a field in which Silvaco has a long track record, with many years of development experience including 3D TCAD enhancements such as high performance meshing and powerful parallelized solver technology. Our increased focus on the power electronics market has been rewarded by strong customer acceptance of the accuracy and convergence properties of our TCAD simulation products. Going forward, we will continue to extend our products to meet our customers’ requirements as they push forward their technology innovations.”

About Silvaco Japan Co., Ltd.

Silvaco Japan was first established as a Japanese branch of Silvaco, Inc. in 1989 and incorporated as a Japanese corporation in 1995. Silvaco Japan’s corporate mission is to be the leading provider of TCAD and EDA software products in the Japanese market. To achieve and maintain its leadership objective, Silvaco Japan is focused on building and growing a strong sales, product support and R&D workforce. Silvaco Japan is headquartered in Yokohama, and maintains an additional office in Kyoto.
www.silvaco.co.jp

Contact:
Silvaco, Inc.
press@silvaco.com

Silvaco Japan Co., Ltd.
press@silvaco.co.jp