Industry Award for Coventor
Coventor, Inc., supplier of automated software solutions for semiconductor devices and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), has announced its SEMulator3D 6.0 won the 2016 "Best of the West" award sponsored by Solid State Technology and SEMI at SEMICON West. This industry award recognizes the product and technology developments that contributed the most significant improvements to the electronics manufacturing supply chain. Coventor's SEMulator3D was selected for the significant financial, scientific and social impact it has had on the industry.
Coventor's SEMulator3D is a 3D virtual fabrication platform that predictively models how next-generation processes including FinFETs, 3D NAND Flash, BEOL, Nanowires, 3D-IC, FDSOI, and DRAM will perform in the fab. Combining design data with advanced physics and deep process knowledge, SEMulator3D creates a "virtual" silicon wafer and mimics a series of unit processes like those in the fab resulting in highly-accurate 3D computer models of the predicted structures on wafer.
"We say that SEMulator3D 6.0 can predict actual from virtual -- but winning this award was one thing we didn't predict," said Dr. David Fried, CTO of Coventor. "We are honored to be named the 2016 Best of the West winner, especially among the product finalists that were considered this year. While SEMulator3D has been widely adopted by leading semiconductor companies, this award further validates the value this tool provides both to manufacturers and the industry at large."
"As today's advanced semiconductor technologies include more 3D features, the cost and complexity of manufacturing escalate, making virtual fabrication an economic necessity to reduce development and manufacturing ramp costs," said Mr. Mike Jamiolkowski, President and CEO of Coventor. "The Best of the West Award highlights the unique offering of SEMulator3D, enabling semiconductor companies to virtually build and predict process variations without incurring costly build and test cycles."
Various processing steps have become increasingly complex in order to produce the types of semiconductors required for today's advanced devices, especially as smaller semiconductor feature sizes and nodes are developed. With shrinking process technologies, parasitic effects of devices and interconnects have a significant impact on circuit performance. SEMulator3D 6.0 addresses this need with the new Electrical Analysis module, so that users can better understand the resistance and capacitance impacts of design and process variation. With this new capability, users can solve for resistance and capacitance dramatically faster than before and without ever leaving the SEMulator3D environment.
To illustrate some of the key advanced capabilities of SEMulator3D, Coventor used it to 3D print a large model of 14nm FinFET transistors across a wide area of SRAM design, at high resolution, with sections cut-out for visibility and artistic effect. The result impressed a panel of judges at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) -- where Coventor was awarded top prize for the piece. As the DAC grand prize winner, the 14nm FinFET 3D Sculpture will be on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA for one year.
