Semiconductors

Semiconductors, and especially Si, are the basic building block of the transistor and all the processing power that comes with its implementation. Commercial finite element TCAD (Technology computer aided design) software is used from different vendors (Silvaco, Synopsys) to simulate the fabrication and electrical characteristics of individual transistors. Higher up the hierarchy, Electronic CAD shows the behaviour of circuits consisting of millions (billions) of nominal identical transistors with quantisation related parameter fluctuation. On a more fundamental level, density functional theory is used to calculate the intrinisc properties of Si and e.g. its properties undre passivation by hydrogen.

For queries about this topic, contact Kees de Groot.

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Projects

Development of wide-ranging functionality in ONETEP

Chris-Kriton Skylaris (Investigator), Jacek Dziedzic

ONETEP is at the cutting edge of developments in first principles calculations. However, while the fundamental difficulties of performing accurate first-principles calculations with linear-scaling cost have been solved, only a small core of functionality is currently available in ONETEP which prevents its wide application. In this collaborative project between three Universities, the original developers of ONETEP will lead an ambitious workplan whereby the functionality of the code will be rapidly and significantly enriched.

nano-CMOS

Mark Zwolinski (Investigator), Michael Merrett

Modelling random device variations within systems using nano-CMOS technologies.

The ONETEP project

Chris-Kriton Skylaris (Investigator), Stephen Fox, Chris Pittock, Alvaro Ruiz-Serrano, Jacek Dziedzic

Program for large-scale quantum mechanical simulations of matter from first principles quantum mechanics. Based on theory and algorithms we have developed for linear-scaling density functional theory calculations on parallel computers.