It was 1988 when I got into SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) while I was characterizing a 1.5 μm Standard cell library developed by students at my Alma-Mata Furtwangen University in Germany. My professor Dr. Nielinger was not only my advisor he also wrote the first SPICE bible in German language. At that time SPICE simulation was already established as the “golden” Simulator for circuit design for over a decade – and remains so to this day.

Of course, SPICE simulators went through several evolutions to adapt to the requirements of the most advanced technologies nodes, and SPICE models have been extended to be able to accurately reflect real silicon behavior; however, it seems that we are now at the point where it takes just too long to extend the models or come up with a complete new model for a specific material.

While over the first three decades only about half a dozen materials where used to manufacture semiconductors, ASM a leading semiconductor equipment manufacturer predicts that by 2020 more than 40 different materials will be in high volume production for the most advanced FinFET nodes at 7 and 5 nm.

This figure shows a 3D representation of a 10nm FinFET transistor front-end-of-line (FEOL) and back end of line up to MET1 already requires 14 different materials. A similar number of materials are required for full back end of line (BEOL) description. (more…)