What's New in 2013

New Hybrid NEGF method (Feb. 27th, 2013)

Crosslight is pleased to announce the successful implementation of a new method of device simulation, the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) method. The NEGF method is regarded as the most advanced method for modeling carrier transport in devices at a nanometer scale. Due to its computational complexity, we have adopted a hybrid approach to divide a device into a quantum ballistic regime (QBT) and several classical drift-diffusion (DD) regime(s). The computationally intensive NEGF method is only used in the QBT regime and it has been seamlessly integrated with the APSYS device simulation software from Crosslight. Users of Crosslight will find running NEGF simulation to be no different than running a typical TCAD simulation except for a slight slow down due to the extra numerical cost of the NEGF calculations.

The new model is now available in APSYS version 2013beta and further details can be found in a new presentation which demonstrates the use of the NEGF model by going through all the process and device simulation steps for a 3D FINFET. To make the simulation more accurate, quantum confinement is treated using a quantum wire density of state (DOS) theory.

Existing users of Crosslight TCAD tools and new potential users may contact us for a free evaluation trial. The application form may be found here.

What's New in 2012

Crosslight Short Course at Photonic West 2013 (Nov. 7th, 2012)

Crosslight is pleased to offer a free half-day short course on optoelectronic device simulation on Wednesday, Feb. 6th at the Photonics West conference in San Francisco. Details are available from this link.

Introducing Optowizard (Sep. 4th, 2012)

Optowizard is a new software modeling tool from Crosslight intended for optical modeling of passive devices. Crosslight's device simulators have a long history of tightly coupling optical and electrical models. Depending on the situation, a wide variety of models were available including:

eigenmode solvers
beam propagation methods (BPM)
multi-layer transfer matrices (TMM)
finite difference time domain models (FDTD)
ray tracing

With Optowizard, these models are now available for stand-alone use for users who do not need to solve the full device equations.

Along with Optowizard, Crosslight is also pleased to introduce its own brand new FDTD solver which can be used in place of the previous solvers from MIT (Meep) and Acceleware. Crosslight's FDTD code can also be used in APSYS and PICS3D to model CMOS image sensors and photonic crystal lasers. Details can be found here.

Version 2012 device simulators released (Aug 31st, 2012)

Version 2012 release represents a high level of maturity for Crosslight's device simulation packages of APSYS, PICS3D and LASTIP. The following is a brief summary of recent upgrade and enhancements:

The most popular and easy-to-use graphic user interface (GUI) program LayerBuilder program has been substantially upgraded to account for nonplanar layer structure. Previous versions LayerBuilder can only handle leveled layers while leaving all other tasks of structural variation to the more sophisticated GUI GeoEditor.
The CSuprem 3D mesh interface has been established for VCSEL modeling. The latest 3D meshing technology to handle unstructured mesh, the plane bending method, has been used to set up 3D VCSEL structures. As a result, detailed 3D geometries like those in realistic VCSELs can be taken into account.
Version 2012 improves on modeling of polarization-dependent spontaneous recombination. Accurate computation of TE, TM and TE/TM-mixed spontaneous recombination/emission is now automatically generated in all simulations. This benefits all devices where spontaneous emission plays an important role.
SPICE mixmode simulation interface has been established so that simutaneous simulation of circuit and device can be performed routinely. Currently, the mixmode interface supports CSPICE, a Crosslight version of SPICE but with minor customization, any other versions of SPICE can be supported.
AM, FM and RIN noise spectrum modeling is now available in PICS3D.
Miniband transport model is further enhanced to efficiently model quantum dots and MQW superlattices embedded in devices such as solar cells and LEDs.
Polarization charge-dependent potential has been incorporated in quantum dot models of GaN based devices, improving the self-consistency of these simulations.
Field-dependent velocity models for GaN and related material have been improved and upgraded.
Several more recent impact ionization models have been added to the device simulators.
Polarization charge model in arbitrary structures have been further improved to include different crystal orientation in different regions of a device. As a demo, complex nanowire/nanorod of nitride material have been demonstrated in 3D, using the CSuprem mesh builder as mesh generator.
PICS3D: laser cavity set up is more convenient so that any configuration of micro-cavity can be simulated. A micro cavity photonic crystal laser diode has been demonstrated in 3D as a result of this improvement.
Self-heating thermal model substantially improved to ensure accurate conservation of heating energy. The thermal model is also more flexible in dealing with non-convergence caused by strong local heatings.
Significant enhancement of data plotting capabilities in device simulators. These include bias-dependent plots such as recombination terms, optical losses and impact ionization rates, at a particular spatial point as well as integrated over the whole device.

What's New in 2011

Crosslight Short Course at Photonic West 2012 (Nov. 7th, 2011)

Crosslight is pleased to offer a free half-day short course on optoelectronic device simulation on Thursday, January 26th at the Photonics West conference in San Francisco. Details are available from this link.

Announcing NovaTCAD (Oct. 31st 2011; edited Nov. 23rd 2011)

Crosslight is proud to announce the release of NovaTCAD, a new software package bundle that integrates several powerful TCAD software packages from Crosslight at an extremely affordable price.

Version 2011 device simulators released (Aug 3rd, 2011)

Crosslight Software proudly announces the release of Version 2011 of Crosslight device simulation software pacakges (APSYS, CSUPREM, LASTIP and PICS3D) with major upgrades making them the most advanced in the industry. These major upgrades are summarized as follows:

Polarization charges of nitride materials are implemented using an intrinsic macro property and are automatically computed between material interfaces or within graded regions. This provides great convenience in modeling GaN based semiconductors of complicated geometry and composition grading or other compounds with built-in polarization.
Major progress in 3D simulation setup procedure: User may start from the .layer format (using the user-friendly GUI LayerBuilder) to design the 2D cross section of a device. Then mask data (usually of GDS format) may be used to convert the 2D cross section into 3D mesh.
Major upgrade of GaN-based material macros to incorporate the latest understanding of the IQE droop in blue LED. As a result, IQE droop as observed in experiments is routinely reproduced in sumulation.
Introduced an efficient new 3D mesh scheme so that mesh plane of any shapes (such as bended shapes) no longer has to cut through the whole device simulation area. This results in substantial mesh savings when handing devices with details of complicated local geometries such as small holes or rods. The new mesh has been incorporated into the friendly graphic user inerface program MaskEditor.
Substantial speed-up in the computation of quantum states in devices with hundreds of quantum wells (such as in QCL and typeII PD).
New quantum well model with self-consistent solutions have been developed for many difference types of applications and device configurations, such as for MQW system within nanowire and nanotubes, and LED with complex geometries. Refer to our LED presentation page for details.
Substantial improvement of non-local transport, optical gain, interband tunneling and temperature dependence in quantum cascade lasers and typeII MQW PD.
More convenient user interface with CSuprem and related GUI tools such as MaskEditor and SemiCrafter so that complicated 3D structures can easily be created without loss of accuracy as found in devices with plane geometries.
APSYS: LED raytracing capability enhanced to include multiple wavelengths and realistic simulation phosphor LED has been demonstrated.
APSYS: Substantial improvement in FDTD so that power extraction in LED with textured interfaces can be simulated more accurately.
PICS3D: power coupling between difference cavities, useful for ring laser which relies on flexbile control or power flow between cavilites.
PICS3D: the QCL model from LASTIP is now available in PICS3D.
Numerous minor improvements of data I/O and plotting.

Crosslight Short Course at NUSOD 2011 (June 27, 2011)

Crosslight is pleased to offer a free half-day short course on optoelectronic device simulation on Friday, September 9th at the NUSOD conference in Rome. Details are available from this link.

New branch office of Crosslight Software opens in Taiwan (Mar 29, 2011)

We are pleased to announce that starting in April 2011, a new Crosslight branch office will be established in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The new office will be conveniently located in the SiSoft Research Center, Hsinchu Science Park and will be headed by Mr. Vincent Tsao (曹福泓), a former TCAD manager of UMC. The Taiwan branch of Crosslight Software will be focused on research and development of advanced simulation technologies as well as providing first class technical support to Crosslight Software users in Taiwan. For more details, please visit us at www.crosslight.com.tw.

Crosslight Short Course at Photonic West 2011 (Jan 6, 2011)

Crosslight is pleased to offer a free half-day short course on optoelectronic device simulation on Thursday, January 27th at the Photonics West conference in San Francisco. Details are available from this link.