Software you must know!

[vrajendr]

Hi guys,

software's you must know:-

If your a MEMS/NEMS person, then this is a wonderful software to look out for,

1.Top in my list is Coventor, one of favorite tools to play with....... 

which integerates mems system level design with mixed signal electronics ( cadence virtuoso) and not to mention its wonderful fab tool which visualizes the fab process .
it does all one mems engineer can think of from design to fabrication and testing.

 http://www.coventor.com/products/mems/mems-for-cadence/

2.secondly in my count down , its  Intellsiuite, it very similar to coventor but it lags the advantage of a good material database and from my experience its very good for beginners but not a tool to look forward for very advanced design.

http://www.intellisense.com/product.aspx

3.Next in my list is Ansys , This is one of the precursor in FEM simulators, does multiphysics analysis. 

http://www.ansys.com/Industries/Electronics+&+Semiconductor/Application+Highlights/MEMS

4.Last in my list is COMSOL Multiphysics, it's wonderful tool for FEM simulations and it has a  really easy user interface which makes solving a problem pretty simple.. knowing the basic boundary condition's and some CAD experience.. you can do wonders with this tool  

    ( definitely a visual Treat! )

http://www.comsol.com/products/multiphysics/

Here's a example  Quantum dot-  Eigen energy  simulation

http://www.comsol.com/showroom/documentation/model/723/

let me know if you wanted to know more about these tools!

thanks,

[samontoy]

A word of caution on simulations...

Personally I’m not a big fan of doing simulations, I solely use them to verify an idea of how something is behaving.  That is to say, I have a some qualitative and quantitate knowledge of what I’m attempting to simulate. From the mentioned software packages, I only have experience using COMSOL Multiphysics. This software uses classical equations to solve most problems which for most cases its sufficient. However, when performing simulations in the nano scale you should exercise caution in interpreting your results. If say you want to use some mesoscopic equations, you can set up your own equations and define parameters like boundary conditions which you can apply to your model. This saves you the hassle of typing your own code and using descent CAD system and FEM solver to perform your calculations. 

Whenever you have new code, always test it out with things that are well understood before attempting to invest time in things which you really don’t know how they function. 

Just wanted to share my thoughts. I’m not stating they are not useful... but to proceed with caution when interpreting you results.

Thanks for recommendations on the other software packages.

Cheers, 

Sergio