New version of the Archimedes package for semiconductor device simulations has been released

(Nanowerk News) A new version of Archimedes and its GUI has been released on nanoHUB! You can run it on the fly now!
Archimedes is the GNU package for semiconductor device simulations that has been released for the first time in 2005 under GPL. It has been created by Jean Michel D. Sellier who has been, since then, the leader of the project and the main developer. It is a free software and thus it can be copied, modified and redistributed under GPL. This is one of the big advantages of using Archimedes.
Electron energy and conduction band in a Silicon diode
Electron energy and conduction band in a Silicon diode.
Archimedes belongs to the well-known family of TCAD software, i.e. tools utilized to assist the development of technologically relevant products. In particular, this package assists engineers in designing and simulating submicron and mesoscopic semiconductor devices.
In a next-future version Archimedes will also be able to simulate nanodevices, using the NEGF formalism. Today Archimedes is used in several big companies for simulation and production purposes.
Archimedes is also useful for teaching purposes since everybody can access the sources, modify and test them. Today, it is used for teaching courses in several hundreds universities all around the world.
The Ensemble Monte Carlo method is the method that Archimedes uses to simulate and predict the behavior of a devices along with a variety of quantum effective potentials to simulate the non-zero size of electrons in nanodevices. Being very stable and reliable, Archimedes can be used to know the characteritics of a device even before this last is built.
Screenshot of the online Archimedes GUI for a MESFET device
Screenshot of the online Archimedes GUI for a MESFET device.
Archimedes is able to simulate a plenty of physics effects and transport for electrons and heavy holes in Silicon, Germanium, GaAs, InSb, AlSb, AlAs , AlxInxSb, AlxIn(1-x)Sb, AlP, AlSb, GaP,GaSb, InP and their compounds (III-V semiconductor materials), along with Silicon Oxide, the applied and/or self-consistent electrostatic and magnetic fields by means of Poisson and Faraday equation. It is also able to deal with heterostructures.
The Archimedes GUI can be found at https://nanohub.org/tools/archimedes
The Archimedes website and sources can be found at http://www.gnu.org/software/archimedes
Source: JM Sellier