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TCAD simulation for semiconductor process and device development

Build the process, predict the device, model new materials atom by atom, mesh, extract parasitics and turn measurements into SPICE models, all in one Silvaco TCAD flow.

Talk to our Technical Experts

What is TCAD simulation?

TCAD simulation (Technology Computer-Aided Design) is physics-based software modeling of how a semiconductor gets made and how the finished device behaves. It runs process steps like ion implantation, oxidation and etch to produce a virtual device structure, then solves carrier transport through that structure to predict current, capacitance, breakdown voltage and self-heating.

TCAD simulation in the Silvaco glossary

  • What it shows that measurement can't

    Sweep a power device into reverse bias and the curve gives you its breakdown voltage. It won't give you the cause. Simulation will: you see the region where impact ionization runs away first, somewhere no probe can reach.

  • What it replaces

    Split lots. Change the layout, a process step or the bias condition in software and watch what moves. You can switch individual physics models on and off, too. When the simulation lines up with your measured data, you're close to the root cause.

  • Where the results go

    Into the rest of your DTCO flow. The structures and SPICE models TCAD produces carry through layout, circuit simulation and RC extraction, so a process change reaches the circuit team as numbers they can design against.

Silvaco TCAD tools

  • Process Simulation

    Builds the device structure by simulating the fab steps that make it.

    • Monte Carlo and analytical implantation, with diffusion and oxidation models calibrated for silicon and SiC
    • Physical etch, deposition and epitaxy, plus lithography and stress, in 1D, 2D or 3D as the step requires, straight from a GDSII layout
    • Add your own physics and materials through the Open Model Interface and Open Material Database
    View Victory Process

  • Device Simulation

    Predicts how that structure performs: current and voltage, heat and light.

    • Drift-diffusion and energy-balance transport, solved for DC, AC and transient conditions
    • Add-on modules for self-heating, optics, and radiation and single-event effects
    • Mixed-mode runs inside a SPICE netlist, on a multi-threaded solver that distributes across machines
    View Victory Device

  • Quantum Device Simulation

    Takes over at the scale where continuum models give out.

    • Tight-binding band structure and self-consistent Schrödinger-Poisson
    • NEGF quantum transport with phonon, surface-roughness and impurity scattering
    • Scales to about a million atoms, covering FinFETs, nanowires, 2D materials and quantum dots
    View Victory Atomistic

  • Meshing

    Gives the device solver a mesh it can converge on.

    • 2D and 3D remeshing with Delaunay or conformal schemes and automated refinement
    • Solid modeling to crop, mirror, stretch or build a structure from scratch
    • Reads Victory Process output and Silvaco structure files, and exports .stl and .vtk
    View Victory Mesh

  • Parasitics

    Pulls resistance and capacitance out of the geometry your process really produced.

    • Physics-based 3D field solver for arbitrary shapes, including devices at angles other than 45° and 90°
    • Adaptive mesh refinement to the accuracy you specify, so runtime goes where it's needed
    • Back-annotates the netlist with node names, resistances and capacitances
    View Victory RCx

  • SPICE Model Extraction

    Turns measured or simulated data into compact models for circuit simulation.

    • Instrument-driven characterization and DoE-driven parameter extraction
    • Compact models including BSIM-CMG, BSIM4/6, HiSIM and PSP, with FinFET and GAAFET support
    • Verification in SmartSpice, and models that run in HSPICE, Spectre, Eldo, LTspice and QSpice
    View Utmost IV

TCAD simulation by device and technology

Each device class fails for its own physical reasons. Start from yours.

How accurate is TCAD simulation?

As accurate as its calibration. Out of the box, a model gets the trends right. Calibrated to your measured silicon, it gets the numbers right, and calibration is a four-step loop.

  1. Measure

    Use silicon you already own: test structures, a split lot, parts from the previous node. Utmost IV takes in the measurements.

  2. Extract

    Utmost IV fits model parameters to your data instead of textbook defaults.

  3. Calibrate

    The fitted parameters feed the process and device models. Victory Device keeps them in an editable material database that covers compound semiconductors as well as silicon, and Victory Atomistic can ground the numbers for materials you haven't measured yet.

  4. Correlate

    Check the calibrated model against measurements it never saw during fitting. How closely it tracks them is how far you can extrapolate with confidence.

Foundry, PDK and platform support

Foundries and process design kits

Victory Process works from your process definition and layout, not from a foundry kit. That lets you model a process before its PDK exists, or generate a virtual, process-based PDK ahead of first silicon. Foundry PDKs are what Silvaco's analog and custom design tools rely on, and current kits cover ams AG, Tower Semiconductor, X-FAB and YITOA Micro Technology processes from 130 nm to 600 nm. That's a sample, so ask about yours.

See PDK coverage Foundry and technology partners

Operating systems

Every tool in the 2025 baseline runs on 64-bit Linux, and most on Windows: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, 8 and 9, CentOS 7, Rocky Linux 8 and 9, and Windows Professional 10 and 11. Victory Atomistic is the Linux-only exception. Linux installs also need a short list of 32-bit compatibility and font packages, set out in the installation guide.

Full platform support

Multi-core, cluster and GPU

Victory Process runs multi-threaded, while Victory Device's solver library supports distributed computing, so a big 3D run can use a whole cluster instead of one workstation. On the GPU side, Silvaco announced work with NVIDIA in July 2026 to accelerate physics-based digital twins on NVIDIA AI and accelerated computing. Tell an application engineer which tool and which simulation you have in mind, and you'll learn what your hardware buys you.

Technology partners

Customers building on Silvaco TCAD

More than 400 customers, from university labs to Tier 1 semiconductor companies, run their TCAD work on Silvaco. That includes eight of the top ten display manufacturers.

  • Power devices

    Vicor

    Took its power-module device modeling from 2D to 3D Victory TCAD, so simulations follow the real device geometry and design iterations drop.

    Read the Vicor announcement

  • GaN

    Wavetek

    Chose Victory TCAD to develop GaN devices for 5G, Wi-Fi and IoT connectivity.

    Read the Wavetek announcement

  • Silicon photonics

    ProMOS Technologies

    "Silvaco's product leadership, service, and technical support were instrumental in our decision to select Silvaco for our photonic device development, helping us accelerate the pace of our innovation."

    Lynn Lin, Vice President, ProMOS Technologies

    Read the ProMOS announcement

  • CMOS image sensors

    Teledyne e2v

    “The Victory TCAD solution enables us to quickly analyze different pixel structures. The impact of different geometries can be easily explored in order to identify the key parameters that affect performance.”

    Ana González Márquez, Director of Technology & Product Development, Teledyne e2v

    Read the Teledyne e2v announcement

SK Powertech on SiC, Fraunhofer ISIT on GaN and more in Silvaco news

Current release

Silvaco TCAD 2025 baseline

All six tools ship in the 2025 baseline, covered in the December 2025 Simulation Standard. Victory Process gains upgraded solvers and meshing, with 56–75% speed-ups on parts of the simulation. Victory Device adds multiphysics thermal and optical runs, Victory RCx models resistivity node by node, and most of the suite now runs natively on Windows.

Download Silvaco TCAD Read the release notes

Versions in this baseline

Victory Process
8.57.5.R
Victory Device
2.0.1.R
Victory Atomistic
1.12.0.R
Victory Mesh
1.12.0.R
Victory RCx
1.4.6.R
Utmost IV
2.24.0.R

Versions update during the year. Download with your customer account through Support and Downloads.

Read the 2025 release write-up

Recent TCAD papers and webinars

Open to read, with no registration.

  • Simulation StandardSeptember 2026

    Predictive TCAD Modeling of Normally-Off p-GaN HEMTs for Dynamic RDS(on), Leakage, Breakdown, and ML-Based Design Exploration

    Read the article

  • WebinarSeptember 2026

    TCAD-Aware SPICE Model Extraction with Utmost IV: From Manufacturing to Surrogate Circuit Modeling

    Watch the webinar

  • Simulation StandardJune 2026

    TCAD Breakdown Simulation of a 1200 V Vertical GaN FinFET

    Read the article

  • WebinarMay 2026

    Fast and Integrated Quantum Transport Solution for GAA-NS-FET Design Exploration & Optimization at Full-Device Scale

    Watch the webinar
Browse the Simulation Standard TCAD examples library
Universities and research

Silvaco TCAD for teaching and research

Accredited, degree-granting institutions get a licensing track of their own. The TCAD Academic Omni License reaches every TCAD framework under a single license, research licenses are priced low, and curriculum packages cover an entire class. Over 200 universities already teach and research with Silvaco software.

Teaching material is included: the example library carries the Plummer–Griffin process examples and an Arizona State University device set. Software updates come with the license; technical support stays with your institution.

University Program Teaching examples

Licensing and support for TCAD software

  • Licensing options

    Victory Omni covers every TCAD framework except Interactive Tools, one tool at a time, on a single annual fee that applies across your sites in the purchasing region. You can pair it with term licenses for individual tools. Time-Based Licensing leases run one, two or three years with updates and support built in. All licenses float from a network license server, and virtual machines can't act as that server.

    Compare licensing options

  • Installation and OS support

    Supported on 64-bit Linux and on Windows 10 and 11. Licenses are served by SFLM 7.4.16.R or a third-party FlexLM 11.19.2.R server, and the installation guide walks you from download through license setup to registration.

    Read the installation guide

  • Documentation

    Per-tool release notes for the 2025 baseline, the hardware requirements sheet and the installation guide, with worked examples sorted by tool and by application.

    Browse documentation

  • Support portal

    Open a case under a current maintenance contract and follow it through to resolution. Your downloads sit in the same portal.

    Go to Support and Downloads

Bring the device that isn't behaving

Send the layer stack and the effect you can't explain. An application engineer will point you to the tools that fit, or say plainly if TCAD isn't the answer.

Talk to our Technical Experts

TCAD simulation questions

Process and device development before wafers are committed. TCAD simulation settles in software the questions you'd otherwise run a split lot to answer: how an implant dose change shifts threshold voltage, where a device breaks down, why one geometry leaks more than another. It also generates the compact SPICE models circuit designers build with.

Process simulation reproduces the manufacturing sequence (implant, anneal, etch, deposition) and outputs a device structure. The device simulator then works out how that structure behaves under bias, from current-voltage and capacitance-voltage curves to breakdown and heating. Most projects need both, since the first defines the device and the second tells you how it performs.

Victory Process is Silvaco's process simulator. It turns your process steps and GDSII layout into a 1D, 2D or 3D structure. Victory Device is the device simulator: it solves that structure under DC, AC and transient conditions and can co-simulate it within a SPICE netlist. Victory Mesh normally refines the mesh in between.

Calibration decides it, far more than the solver does. Fit the models to your own measured silicon with Utmost IV, then test them on data they weren't fitted to. The agreement you see on that held-out data is the accuracy you can plan around.

Victory Process with Victory Device, and usually in 3D, because breakdown in a power device follows geometry that a 2D cut can misrepresent. That's why Vicor moved its power-device modeling to 3D Victory TCAD. Victory Mesh refines the structure, and Utmost IV turns measured parts into SPICE models.

Yes. Victory Process includes calibrated silicon carbide oxidation, and Victory Device's material parameters cover compound semiconductors alongside silicon. SK Powertech adopted it in 2023 for SiC power work and Wavetek for GaN connectivity parts, and Fraunhofer ISIT is collaborating with Silvaco on GaN.

In Silvaco's current TCAD flow, Victory Process handles the fabrication steps and Victory Device handles the electrical behavior. Victory Device accepts legacy Atlas input, which means an existing deck gets migrated rather than rebuilt from nothing.

None is required. Silvaco TCAD starts from a process description and a layout rather than a foundry kit, which is how teams model processes that don't have a PDK yet. Foundry kits matter on the circuit-design side, for Silvaco's analog and custom IC tools, where the published sample spans X-FAB, Tower Semiconductor, ams AG and YITOA processes.

Silvaco designs its TCAD solvers for GPU and CPU performance, with the aim of checking more of the design space per run. How much a GPU helps depends on the tool and the simulation type, so confirm it for your case with an application engineer. The NVIDIA collaboration announced in 2026 extends this work to physics-based digital twins.

Yes, on academic terms rather than commercial ones: low-cost research licenses, curriculum packages for teaching, and a TCAD Academic Omni License that reaches every framework. Updates are included with the license. More than 200 universities take part, and any accredited, degree-granting institution can apply through the University Program.