EEE 6390 S2015 VLSI Device Design

HW Assignment 5 FLOODS 1 Poisson

Equation and PN diode
Due Friday, February 19
19. Honesty Policy (In course syllabus)
All students admitted to the University of Florida have signed a statement of
academic honesty committing themselves to be honest in all academic work and
understanding that failure to comply with this commitment will result in disciplinary
action. This statement is a reminder to uphold your obligation as a UF student and to
be honest in all work submitted and exams taken in this course and all others.
Lab assignments will help you incorporate FLOODS related files on Canvas: slides,
tutorials and most importantly device scripts.
This assignment will help you get familiar with Poisson equation. In terms of FLOODS,
we will focus on Grid(Section 4) and Doping(Section 6) to help you get familiar with a
PN diode script(Canvas Files:FLOODS/scripts/pn.tcl).
Step 1:
Follow Tutorial 1 (Canvas Files:FLOODS/Tutorials/1_Access).
First section of this tutorial instructs you on how to get access to the workstation where
FLOODS is installed. Second section guides you on how to start up FLOODS.
Select appropriate tutorial for your OS. Make sure to follow all the steps otherwise your
script may not run as intended (specially X-11 forwarding for Windows users).
Step 2:
Follow Tutorial 2 (Canvas Files:FLOODS/Tutorials/2_transfer_run).
First section allows you to transfer scripts between the workstation and your system. I
would recommend maintaining different directories/folders for different device
structures.
Second section instructs you on how to run this script. Make sure you are familiar with
Tutorial 1 prior to this step.
Step 3:
Editing the script based on questions 2 and 3.
You may choose to edit the scripts on your system or on the workstation(using vim if you
are comfortable).
Note for Windows users: If you choose to edit on your own system, I would recommend
using Wordpad.

1. Poisson equation:
!! !

!! ! = or !" =
where is dielectric constant(F/m), is potential(V), script E is electric field(V/m)(to
avoid confusion with energy, which will be standard E) and is charge
density(C/cm3).
Using Poisson equation, qualitatively plot:
(a) Charge density as a function of position
(b) Potential as a function of position
for the following electric-field distributions in 1D space:
I.

II.

III.

2. Grid spacing and optimization in FLOODS

I. In the script/deck* for PN diode (pn.tcl), the grid was more refined at the junction
using:
line x loc=0.0 spac=0.5 tag=T
line x loc=2.0 spac=0.1
line x loc=4.0 spac=0.5 tag=B

a) Plot potential along the x-direction and save as an Excel file using instructions from
tutorial 3(Canvas Files:FLOODS/Tutorials/3_plot).
Now replace the above grid specifications in the deck by:
b) A uniform but coarse grid spacing:
line x loc=0.0 spac=0.5 tag=T
line x loc=2.0 spac=0.5

line x loc=4.0 spac=0.5 tag=B

then plot potential along the x-direction and save as an Excel file.
c) A uniform but very fine grid spacing:
line x loc=0.0 spac=0.05 tag=T
line x loc=2.0 spac=0.05
line x loc=4.0 spac=0.05 tag=B

then plot potential along the x-direction and save as an Excel file.
II. Now plot the 3 sets of values on the same graph using a tool of your own choice
(eg. Excel). Avoid smoothed line while plotting. Which plot would you consider:
a) most accurate?
b) least accurate?
III. While finer grid spacing improves accuracy, it increases time to converge to a
correct solution. Optimizing a grid involves deciding grid spacing such that spacing is
coarse in the less interesting areas, for eg. quasi neutral regions in a diode. By
qualitatively comparing accuracy of result and time to convergence, which of the 3
grid structures is best optimized?
*We tend to use deck and script interchangeably for historic reasons. As in a deck of
cards: http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/punchcard/
3. Asymmetric PN diode
In the PN diode deck, the doping on either side is equal making it symmetric.
sel z=1.0e15*(x<2.0)+10 name=ND
sel z=1.0e15*(x>2.0)+10 name=NA
sel z=(ND-NA) name=Doping

Replace the above the section with:

sel z=1.0e16*(x<2.0)+10 name=ND
sel z=1.0e15*(x>2.0)+10 name=NA
sel z=(ND-NA) name=Doping

This new doping profile is also answer to one of the sections in question 1. Plot
potential and total charge to compare with your answer in question 1.
4. Physical units in simulation
One confusing aspect of simulation is to get the right physical units. You will come
across this not just in FLOODS, but also other applications.
The electric field plot (Fig. 1) for the PN diode at equilibrium does not have units
mentioned in the graph.
You do have a depletion region approximation of the total charge number
concentration at equilibrium (Fig. 2). Make note units are in (Number of charges)/cm3.
This is the convention FLOODS follows when you select Elec, Hole or Doping to plot.
So you will have to multiply by q=1.6e-19 to obtain charge concentration in C/cm3.

Show a back-of-the-envelope calculation using the Poisson equation to decide whether

the units on the y-axis of Fig 1 is (V/m) or (V/cm)? Using consistent dimensions for
length is the key to solving physics problems correctly.

Figure1. Electric field vs Vertical distance

Figure 2. Charge number concentration vs Vertical distance. This figure is a depletion

region approximation of what you would typically get from FLOODS to help with
easy calculation.