GNU Archimedes
Original author(s) | Dr. J. M. D. Sellier |
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Developer(s) | GNU project |
Stable release | 1.0[1]
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Operating system | GNU/Linux, UNIX |
Type | TCAD |
License | GPL |
Website | Official website |
This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (April 2012) |
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2012) |
Archimedes is a TCAD package for use by engineers to design and simulate submicron and mesoscopic semiconductor devices. Archimedes is free software and thus it can be copied, modified and redistributed under GPL. Archimedes uses the Ensemble Monte Carlo method and is able to simulate physics effects and transport for electrons and heavy holes in Silicon, Germanium, GaAs, InSb, AlSb, AlAs , AlxInxSb, AlxIn(1-x)Sb, AlP, AlSb, GaP, GaSb, InP and their compounds (III-V semiconductor materials), along with Silicon Oxide. Applied and/or self-consistent electrostatic and magnetic fields are handled with the Poisson and Faraday equations.
The GNU project has announced on May 2012 that the software package Aeneas[2] will be substituted by Archimedes, making this one the GNU package for Monte Carlo semiconductor devices simulations[3].
Introduction
Archimedes is the GNU package for semiconductor device simulations that has been released for the first time on 2005 under GPL. It has been created by Jean Michel Sellier who is, since then, the leader of the project and the main developer. It is a Free software and thus it can be copied, modified and redistributed under GPL. This is the one of the big advantages of using Archimedes.
Archimedes belongs to the well-known family of TCAD software, i.e. tools utilized to assist the development of technologically relevant products. In particular, this package assists engineers in designing and simulating submicron and mesoscopic semiconductor devices. In a next-future version Archimedes will also be able to simulate nanodevices, using the Wigner formalism. Today Archimedes is used in several big companies for simulation and production purposes.
Archimedes is also useful for teaching purposes since everybody can access the sources, modify and test them. Today, it is used for teaching courses in several hundreds universities all around the world. Furthermore, a simplified version, developed for students, is available on nanoHUB.org.
The Ensemble Monte Carlo method is the method that Archimedes uses to simulate and predict the behaviour of a devices. Being the Monte Carlo very stable and reliable, Archimedes can be used to know the characteritics of a device even before this last is built.
The physics and geometry of a device is described simply by a script, which makes, in this sense, Archimedes a powerful tool for the simulation of quite general semiconductor devices.
Archimedes is able to simulate a plenty of physics effects and transport for electrons and heavy holes in Silicon, Germanium, GaAs, InSb, AlSb, AlAs , AlxInxSb, AlxIn(1-x)Sb, AlP, AlSb, GaP, GaSb, InP and their compounds (III-V semiconductor materials), along with Silicon Oxide, the applied and/or self-consistent electrostatic and magnetic fields by means of Poisson and Faraday equation. It is, also, able to deal with heterostructures.
The Ethical Motivations, a New Paradigma in Science
Archimedes has been created after observing the situation of semiconductor simulations around the world. One easily observes that the all codes developed for simulation are usually not free and/or proprietary codes. That is a very bad situation, at least for accademic purposes, since it forces people to reinvent the wheel everytime a piece of code is needed. This surely slows down the progress of Science (immagine you had to rediscover the Newtonian laws every time you need them...).
The actual situation is that we have a huge amount of papers describing a lot of numerical methods for advanced simulations of semiconductor devices, but nobody can access a single code on which to build new and even more advanced methods.
So, today, every university (and even every group in a university) has its own Monte Carlo simulator, its own NEGF simulator and so on.. Would not it be better if we could avoid this incredibile duplication of efforts all around the world?
That is why Archimedes has been created.
References
- ^ Sellier, Jean Michel (2011-10-25). "new version of Archimedes 2.0.0" (Mailing list). info-gnu. Retrieved 2012-05-13.
- ^ « Aeneas », gnu.org, May 2012.
- ^ Sellier, Jean Michel (2012-05-13). "Aeneas new release" (Mailing list). info-gnu. Retrieved 2012-05-13.