What Is IEEE Journal of Technology Computer Aided Design?

IEEE Journal of Technology Computer Aided Design (IEEE TCAD) is a peer-reviewed publication of the IEEE Electron Devices Society that covers the simulation, modeling, and design automation of semiconductor devices, processes, and circuits. Technology computer-aided design (TCAD) encompasses the computational tools and methodologies used to model integrated circuit fabrication processes, predict device electrical characteristics from first principles, and extract compact parameters for use in circuit-level simulators. The journal serves as the primary archival venue for researchers who develop the simulation frameworks and physical models that underpin the semiconductor industry's ability to design and optimize transistors, memories, and sensors before committing to expensive physical fabrication runs.

TCAD has been integral to the semiconductor development workflow since the 1970s, when process and device simulation tools first allowed engineers to evaluate implant profiles, diffusion fronts, and transistor characteristics computationally. As device geometries have scaled below 10 nanometers and new materials have entered production, the physical models required to describe carrier transport, quantum confinement, and non-equilibrium phenomena have grown correspondingly complex, maintaining strong demand for the research the journal publishes.

Process and Device Simulation

The simulation of fabrication processes is a core focus of the journal. Articles address the modeling of ion implantation, thermal annealing and dopant diffusion, chemical vapor deposition, oxidation, and etching, along with the stress and defect evolution that these steps introduce into silicon and compound semiconductor substrates. Device simulation articles develop and validate numerical solutions to the coupled equations governing carrier transport, most commonly the drift-diffusion model for conventional devices, and more elaborate hydrodynamic or Monte Carlo approaches for high-field and nanoscale structures where the simpler model loses accuracy. The IEEE Electron Devices Society's TCAD technical committee coordinates community activities in this area and has supported the journal's scope as it has expanded from planar MOSFET devices into FinFETs, gate-all-around nanowire transistors, and heterojunction devices.

Compact Modeling and Circuit-Level Integration

A second major theme in IEEE TCAD is the development and validation of compact models: mathematical descriptions of device behavior efficient enough for use in large-scale circuit simulation. The BSIM family of MOSFET models, PSP, and their successors have all been validated and refined through work published in the journal. Compact models serve as the interface between device simulation and circuit design, translating the physics captured by TCAD simulations into the behavioral parameters that circuit designers rely on for timing, power, and signal integrity analysis. The journal covers model extraction methodology, statistical variability modeling, aging effects such as bias temperature instability and hot-carrier degradation, and the extension of established model frameworks to novel device architectures and materials including high-k dielectrics, strained silicon, and two-dimensional semiconductors.

Emerging Device Technologies and TCAD Methodology

IEEE TCAD increasingly publishes research on simulation frameworks for devices beyond conventional CMOS, including ferroelectric field-effect transistors, phase-change memories, resistive switching memories, tunnel field-effect transistors, and quantum transport devices. Each of these requires physical models that extend or replace those developed for silicon MOSFETs, and the journal provides a venue for both the physics-based modeling work and the algorithmic advances needed to make these simulations computationally tractable. Efficient methodologies for three-dimensional TCAD, which are necessary for simulation of FinFET and nanosheet geometries, have been addressed in dedicated articles, and new simulation methodologies for the next generation of TCAD tools have been collected in recent special issues indexed on IEEE Xplore. Research applying TCAD to radiation effects, specifically the use of simulation to predict single-event transients and total ionizing dose responses in circuits for space and nuclear environments, is a further application area covered in the journal's archive of applications-focused simulation work.

Applications

IEEE Journal of Technology Computer Aided Design covers research with applications in a range of areas, including:

• Transistor and memory cell development for advanced CMOS technology nodes
• Radiation-hardened integrated circuit design for space and nuclear applications
• Compact model development for analog and digital circuit simulation
• Process development for compound semiconductor and wide-bandgap devices
• Emerging non-volatile memory technologies including ReRAM and PCM
• Device-technology co-optimization for power electronics and RF circuits