VISTA-user interface, task level, and tool integration

Succeeding an earlier paper on the data level, the Viennese Integrated System for Technology CAD Applications (VISTA), an integration and development system for Technology CAD, is presented. Starting with a short overview of TCAD methodology and existing integrated systems, portability and comprehensibility are postulated as key considerations and an application-framework architecture is proposed. The design of VISTA´s user interface and task level, presented next, adheres strictly to these guidelines. To enable the cooperation of independent simulation tools, an automatic triangulation-based service is provided by VISTA to resolve inconsistencies in wafer representations. A final example shows how three different simulators, integrated by the framework are used to simulate a planarized, trench-isolated 0.25 μm CMOS process