C++ Design and Implementation Challenges in Technology Computer Aided Design Frameworks

Interoperability of physical simulation tools is often cumbersome due to dif- ferences in domain representation. The Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) community (1) has realized this problem and is working on providing an object-oriented interface for representing and manipulating the state of a semiconductor wafer during process and device simulation, the Semiconduc- tor Wafer Representation (SWR) [1, 2, 3]. We describe an implementation of components of a 3D SWR designed to support the needs of many TCAD simulators. A set of classes provide support for solid modeling operations, mesh refinement operations, and data interchange. A layered memory subsystem allows either uniprocess or client/server operation. Run-time type identification provides dynamic extensibility of data types.