Technology Development using Stone Pillar Suite^TM

A possible workflow for technology development is illustrated in the figure below. This illustrates the steps from initial supported device and performance target setting in the upper left of the diagram through to process monitoring and report generation in the lower left. In between are several stages including test chip creation, DRC rule creation, experiment design, wafer fab, and electrical test and analysis and SPICE model creation and monitoring.

Many of these processes are iterative. In fact the whole process can be iterated or individual steps or groups of steps may by the subject of iterative process improvement.

This figure illustrates the steps involved in a typical technology development cycle.

The next figure shows how the tools of Stone Pillar Suite overlay on these operations. Each box in the original figure is addressed by one or more of the tools of Stone Pillar Suite.

The tools of Stone PIllar Suite facilitate the operations involved in technology development as illustrated in this figure. The tools named in each box address the operations shown in the preceeding figure.

For example, in a complete deployment if Stone Pillar Suite, several advantages would speed the steps in the process illustrated above.

• Device targets defined in DeviceTargetManager are stored to the Stone Pillar Suite database for use in subsequent process monitoring and report generation.
• Test devices created in TestChipBuilder can be saved, along with full details of their geometry and design rule variations for use in subsequent data analysis.
• Test plans can easily be applied to test chips created in TestChipBuilder using TestPlanManager. This approach eliminates the need to retrieve details of the individual devices aas these are retained automatically in the Stone Pillar Suite database.
• Design rule sets created using DesignRuleBuilder can be automatically loaded into test chips created by TestChipBuilder.
• Experiments set up using ExperimentBuilder can be saved for easy review when experimental results become available or for review by colleagues wi=shing to run similar experimental variations.
• Process flows contained in ProcessFlowManager can be easily reviewed when setting up experiments or reviewing the results of experimental data.
• DataAnalyzer provides ready access to all of the information created in the previous steps for quick analysis of the impact of variations in process flow, device geometry, design rule, or even manufaturing facility or equipment.
• SpiceModelManager provides a quick interactive tool for reviewing SPICE models and electrical measurements.
• ReportGenerator can automatically create reports using the full access to all of the processing details created within the Stone Pillar Suite database in the preceeding steps.

More details about these capabilities are included in the information about individual products and also the other detailed application descriptions.