Computational Microelectronics (A2)
Project PI: Christine Maziar
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Microelectronics is specifically mentioned in the RFP as an area of interest to Intel. Computational microelectronics involves mainly simulation of semiconductor process, device and circuit applications. The most effective transfer of new models developed in university research programs has been accomplished when those models are built and tested within widely available simulation platforms such as PISCES and SUPREM (codes now over a decade old). There is generally broad consensus in the process/device modeling community that to continue to support the rapid pace of technology development demanded by the microelectronics industry (and expressed in the SIA roadmap), new simulation platforms using contemporary programming paradigms are required. As part of our ongoing research activity the simulator PROPHET(developed at Bell Laboratories-now Lucent) is to be developed, in collaboration with Professor Bob Dutton's group at Stanford, as the next generation process and device platform. The proposed research activity will involve migration of UT PROPHET and other related simulation codes for microelectronics problems, most notably our ion implantation simulator UT-MARLOWE, to Intel workstation and cluster systems.
TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
Technical work will involve both process and device modeling using models of increasing complexity in two and three dimensions. Of particular interest in device modeling is the inclusion of quantum effects as device size continues to shrink. Some of the work will deal with parallelization of the solution algorithm and other computationally intensive components in the device and process simulators. Related work on parallel Monte Carlo simulations for process and device transport will also be carried out using the UT computational simulators.
IMPACT
Migration of these simulation tools to the Intel/NT platforms, particularly within a distributed environment, will greatly increase the likelihood that an Intel/NT workstation will be the single platform of choice for device and process development engineers. In anticipation that the Intel/NT platform will seize a controlling share of the market, the computational microelectronics group has already begun introducing Intel and NT based systems into their simulation activities. This proposal will accelerate this activity.
EQUIPMENT
We request a total of 12 Pentium Pro processors, along with 5 dual processors with graphics and 7 dual processors. Use of both tightly coupled and loosely coupled Intel clusters in our research is proposed. On the tightly coupled systems, for fast communications between computers the 100 Mbit/s Fast Ethernet on each of the machines will be used. The equipment will be installed in the Microelectronics Research Computing Laboratory at the Pickle campus.
RESOURCES
The research will be carried out as part of the charter of the microelectronics research group at the Pickle microelectronics facility in conjunction with Computer Science. The microelectronics simulation group at UT have a very close and long standing interaction with Intel. For example, several of our doctoral graduates have joined Intel in recent years and this year two of our graduates have joined Intel as NOYCE Fellows. This equipment donation will be leveraged by over $500k/year of research support for our simulation and modeling activities.
BENEFITS TO INTEL
NT based Intel products are beginning to compete with other established workstation products for microelectronics modeling. Our colleagues at Lucent Technologies are moving towards these platforms and our students in Electrical and Computer Engineering will be trained using this system.