SIMULATION APPARATUS, SIMULATION METHOD AND NON-TRANSITORY COMPUTER READABLE RECORDING MEDIUM

• US 20140063010A1
• Filed: 12/05/2012
• Published: 03/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Ai Omodaka, Kenji Kawabata, Yoshiyuki Shioyama
• Inventors: SHIOYAMA, Yoshiyuki, OMODAKA, Ai, KAWABATA, Kenji
• Granted Patent: US 9,183,673 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/420
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/10 Constructive solid geometry [CSG] using solid primitives, e.g. cylinders, cubes

Abstract

In accordance with an embodiment, a simulation apparatus includes a two-dimensional section dividing processing unit, a two-dimensional simulator, a one-dimensional combining processing unit, and a three-dimensional shape combining processing unit. The two-dimensional section dividing processing unit divides a three-dimensional shape as a simulation target into at least one set of two-dimensional sections intersecting with each other and defines the three-dimensional shape as the two-dimensional sections. The two-dimensional simulator runs a two-dimensional shape simulation in each time step for each of the two-dimensional sections obtained by the dividing and acquires a two-dimensional shape. The one-dimensional combining processing unit extracts a film configuration for each intersection of the two-dimensional sections from the acquired two-dimensional shape and combines the film configurations to acquire one-dimensional film configurations. The three-dimensional shape combining processing unit creates a three-dimensional structure from the acquired one-dimensional film configurations on the basis of information on the intersection.

Claims

1. A simulation apparatus comprising:

a two-dimensional section dividing processing unit configured to divide a three-dimensional shape as a simulation target into at least one set of two-dimensional sections intersecting with each other and configured to define the three-dimensional shape as the two-dimensional sections;

a two-dimensional simulator configured to run a two-dimensional shape simulation in each time step for each of the two-dimensional sections obtained by the dividing and configured to acquire a two-dimensional shape;

a one-dimensional combining processing unit configured to extract a film configuration for each intersection of the two-dimensional sections from the acquired two-dimensional shape and configured to combine the film configurations to acquire one-dimensional film configurations; and

a three-dimensional shape combining processing unit configured to create a three-dimensional structure from the acquired one-dimensional film configurations on the basis of information on the intersection.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a two-dimensional shape combining processing unit configured to two-dimensionally combine the one-dimensional film configurations obtained by the one-dimensional combining processing unit on the basis of the intersection information and newly define the two-dimensionally combined one-dimensional film configurations as two-dimensional sections,

wherein the two-dimensional simulator runs a two-dimensional shape simulation for each of the newly defined two-dimensional sections up to a final time step, and

the three-dimensional shape combining processing unit creates the three-dimensional configuration from the one-dimensional film configurations acquired by the final time step.

3. The apparatus of claim 1,

wherein the two-dimensional section dividing processing unit comprises a dynamic two-dimensional section dividing function to divide a desired region at a desired interval.

4. The apparatus of claim 1,

wherein the two-dimensional section dividing processing unit divides an arbitrary region comprising a boundary of mask patterns of the three-dimensional shape at a desired interval in a direction parallel to the mask pattern boundary.

5. The apparatus of claim 4,

wherein the two-dimensional section dividing processing unit extracts, from the mask patterns, a region in which masks are expected to intersect as the desired region.

6. The apparatus of claim 3,

wherein the two-dimensional section dividing processing unit changes the interval of the dividing in every time step.

7. The apparatus of claim 1,

wherein when the extracted film configurations are not the same configuration, the one-dimensional combining processing unit performs the combining by giving a weight to the film configuration which is smaller in shape change amount than a film configuration of a time step prior to the time step of the extracted film configurations.

8. The apparatus of claim 1,

wherein when the extracted film configurations are not the same configuration, the one-dimensional combining processing unit performs the combining by giving a weight to the film configuration obtained from the two-dimensional section which is expected to be higher in shape aspect from the mask patterns.

9. The apparatus of claim 1,

wherein the two-dimensional section dividing processing unit performs the dividing in such a manner that the two two-dimensional sections intersect at an angle other than 90 degrees.

10. A simulation method comprising:

dividing a three-dimensional shape as a simulation target into at least one set of two-dimensional sections intersecting with each other;

running a two-dimensional shape simulation in each time step regarding each of the two-dimensional sections and thereby acquiring a two-dimensional shape;

extracting a film configuration for each intersection of the two-dimensional sections from the acquired two-dimensional shape and then combining the film configurations to acquire one-dimensional film configurations; and

creating a three-dimensional structure from the acquired one-dimensional film configurations on the basis of information on the intersection.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising two-dimensionally combining the acquired one-dimensional film configurations on the basis of the intersection information to newly create a two-dimensional shape, and running a two-dimensional shape simulation of the next time step to acquire a new two-dimensional shape,

wherein the acquisition of the one-dimensional film configurations and the acquisition of the new two-dimensional shape are repeated up to a final time step, and

the three-dimensional structure is created from the one-dimensional film configurations acquired by the final time step.

12. The method of claim 10,

wherein the dividing comprises dividing a desired region at a desired interval.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising reading mask pattern information comprising a boundary of mask patterns of the three-dimensional shape,

wherein the dividing comprises dividing an arbitrary region comprising the mask pattern boundary at a desired interval in a direction parallel to the mask pattern boundary.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising reading a plurality of pieces of mask pattern information on the three-dimensional shape,

wherein the desired region is a region which is extracted from the mask patterns and in which masks are expected to intersect.

15. The method of claim 12,

wherein the interval of dividing is changeable in every time step.

16. The method of claim 10,

wherein the acquisition of the one-dimensional film configurations comprises, when the extracted film configurations are not the same configuration to each other, combining by giving a weight to the film configuration which is smaller in shape change amount than a film configuration of a time step prior to the time step of the extracted film configurations.

17. The method of claim 10,

wherein the acquisition of the one-dimensional film configurations comprises, when the extracted film configurations are not the same configuration to each other and when mask pattern information is readable, combining by giving a weight to the film configuration obtained from the two-dimensional section which is expected to be higher in shape aspect from the mask patterns.

18. The method of claim 10,

wherein the dividing comprises dividing in such a manner that the two two-dimensional sections intersect at an angle other than 90 degrees.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium containing a program which causes a computer to execute a simulation, the simulation comprising:

dividing a three-dimensional shape as a simulation target into at least one set of two-dimensional sections intersecting with each other;

running a two-dimensional shape simulation in each time step regarding each of the two-dimensional sections and thereby acquiring a two-dimensional shape;

extracting a film configuration for each intersection of the two-dimensional sections from the acquired two-dimensional shape and then combining the film configurations to acquire one-dimensional film configurations; and

creating a three-dimensional structure from the acquired one-dimensional film configurations on the basis of information on the intersection.

20. The medium of claim 19,

wherein the simulation further comprises two-dimensionally combining the acquired one-dimensional film configurations on the basis of the intersection information to newly create a two-dimensional shape, and running a two-dimensional shape simulation of the next time step to acquire a new two-dimensional shape,

the acquisition of the one-dimensional film configurations and the acquisition of the new two-dimensional shape are repeated up to a final time step, and

the three-dimensional structure is created from the one-dimensional film configurations acquired by the final time step.