1. Synopsys Sentaurus Tutorial - For EE 130/230M Project
Prof. King Liu and Dr. Xu

2. CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
The following material is being disclosed to you pursuant to a non-disclosure agreement between UC Berkley and Synopsys. Information disclosed in this presentation may be used only as permitted under such an agreement.
LEGAL NOTICE
Information contained in this presentation reflects Synopsys plans as of the date of this presentation. Such plans are subject to completion and are subject to change. Products may be offered and purchased only pursuant to an authorized quote and purchase order. Synopsys is not obligated to develop the software with the features and functionality discussed in the materials.

3. Outline Software Setups and Configurations
Introduction to Sentaurus TCAD
Basic Sentaurus Operations
Project Tips

4. Software Setups X11 Forwarding Software (i.e. Exceed) Putty
Successful running will display a task bar on your desktop
Exceed helps you forward the GUIs from Unix system to your PC
Putty is a remote login software, will help you to log into Unix system from a PC (Windows)

5. Software Setups
You may also use Xming that is loaded on the computer lab.
Putty
Putty is a remote login software, will help you to log into Unix system from a PC (Windows)

6. Servers and Performance
Instructional servers:
pulsar.eecs.berkeley.edu
quasar.eecs.berkeley.edu
c199.eecs.berkeley.edu
Shared servers are going to be slow, due to the multiple-thread tasking.
Do not wait until the last day!
For those who want to WFH: The connection speed is going to be slow, if you are off campus and do the direct forwarding from the servers.
My suggestion: leave a computer on campus running Sentaurus and remote log into it.

7. Configurations .cshrc file
A system configuration file under your folder, to define all the environmental variables needed in Unix system
Append the following codes to the bottom of your existing .cshrc file:
X11 Forwarding
Make sure you have enabled the X11 forwarding option in putty.
setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE
set path = ($path /usr/eesww/synopsys/G_ /bin)
setenv STDB $HOME/SYNOPSYS/STDB

8. Please check here !

9. Project Folder
Copy the project folder provided on the project link of class website o to the instructional server on your home directory.

10. Running Sentaurus Start Exceed Start putty
Select the server you want to run your simulation
Log on the server
Input your Account name and Password
After you enter your login name, the system displays “Access Denied”. Ignore it and go ahead to enter your password.

11. After login, it’s recommended that you first check whether you have correctly added the Sentaurus path in the .cshrc file.
So type “which swb”
It tells you the installation path of Sentaurus.
Then, type “swb” to start Sentaurus workbench.

12. Sentaurus Workbench Run command: swb
Graphical user interface to unify all simulation tools into a single experiment project flow
Used to organize projects and set up experiments for both structure generation and device simulation
Technology Computer-Aided-Design Tools
Parameter row
Experiment column

13. Unlocking Workbench
Double click 20nm-NMOS_wo_Halo : the simulation modules will show up on the work bench
If you cannot edit the value in the cell, then Right click 20nm-NMOS_wo_Halo-> project->unlock :: This will unlock the project for modification of values.
Technology Computer-Aided-Design Tools
Parameter row
Experiment column

14. Sentaurus Structure Editor
Recommended to run in workbench
Run command (under putty): sde
Structure Editor (1) generates the device structure (including the doping profiles) (2) Defines the electrical contact and (3) generates the meshing for numerical simulations.
Parameters you need to change/optimize for this project
Gate oxide thickness (Xo, Units: um)
MOSFET gate length (Lgate, Units: um)
Spacer length (Lsp, Units: um)
Channel Doping Concentration (ChanDoping, Units: cm-3)
Source/Drain extension depth (XjExt, Units: um)

15. Sentaurus Device Recommended to run in workbench
Run command (under putty): sdevice
Sentaurus Device simulates the device performance by solving multiple, coupled physical equations based on the meshing.
Inputs: gate voltage (Vgs), drain voltage (Vds), workfunction
Common Physical models:
Si band structure (Ec/v, Nc/v and bandgap narrowing)
Fermi-Dirac Statistics
Poisson equation, continuity equation
Band-to-band tunneling, R-G current
Drift-Diffusion current, carrier mobility, velocity saturation

16. Sentaurus Inspect Recommended to run in workbench
Used to automatically extract critical device performance parameters such as:
Vt_lin Id_lin Gm_lin
Vt_sat Id_sat Gm_sat
I_OFF SS
DIBL
Also used to plot the Id-Vg and Id-Vd curves

17. Simulation Status
Start Sentaurus, first select from the left project column, right-click to “preprocess”.
Then you will find the nodes will display different colors, suggesting they have different properties. Here is a summary. Only colorful nodes will give you the simulation output.
“Ready” means the current tool is free of syntax errors (You should see this since you are not allowed to modify the scripts).
Right-click a certain Ready nodes to run, after a short period of time, you will find it changes to “done” or “failed”.

18. Basic Operations for Sentaurus Structure Editor
Now you can view your simulation results if the nodes are done.
Right-click the node in Structure editor, select Visualize → Tecplot SV (Select File) and choose msh.tdr file to view your device structure.
This is the gate position, only gate contact is left
1-dimensional contact
By default, doping concentration is displayed

19. Basic Operations for Sentaurus Device
Right-click the “done” node in Structure Device, select Visualize → Tecplot SV (Select File) and choose des.tdr file to view your device performance contours (vector fields).
Current Density
Linear region
Saturation region

20. Basic Operations for Sentaurus Device Cont.’d
Right-click the “done” node in Structure Device, select Visualize → Inspect (Select File) and choose IdVg_des.plt file to view your device performance curves.
Choose Log Y or Linear Y here
Device Terminals
Most common plot combination is “gate: OuterVoltage”
Outputs
Use cursors to read the data value along the curve
“drain: TotalCurrent”

21. Idsat, Ilin and IOFF
Idsat
Vds=VDD
Ilin
Vds=20mV
IOFF
VDD

22. Threshold Voltage Ith = 100nA · W/Lgate W has default value of 1um for
Constant current definition of threshold voltage
Ith = 100nA · W/Lgate
W has default value of 1um for
2-dimensional device simulation
Vth

23. SS and DIBL Sub-threshold Swing
DIBL is defined as the threshold voltage difference between linear and saturation region.

24. Please come to Dr. Xu’s office hours (M&Tu) or send emails
Q&A
Please come to Dr. Xu’s office hours (M&Tu) or send s
for any technical questions.