Installation - Part 2

Step 2: Compiling everything:

2.a) Petsc
type these in the terminal. It seems that the new gcc compiler has some issue with the gss code.

export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.2
export CXX=/usr/bin/g++-4.2


gunzip petsc
tar -xvf petsc
cd petsc
export PETSC_DIR=`pwd`

./config/configure.py --with-cc=gcc --download-mpich=1 --with-clanguage=cxx --with-mpi=0 --download-c-blas-lapack=1 --with-precision=longdouble --with-shared=0


2.b) Cgnslib
bunzip2 cgnslib
tar -xvf cgnslib
cd cgsnslib
./configure
make
sudo make install

2.c) GSS
gunzip the file
tar -xvf the file
cd GSS_dev
export GSS_DIR=`pwd`
./configure
make
sudo make install

It takes a while but eventually you should have a working TCAD simulator.
Please let me know if you encounter any problem.

Where do I start?

Good question. A good general resource is TCAD Central where you can find an exhaustive collection of news, conferences, and software.
But ultimately, if you want to learn about TCAD you need to run some simulations yourself. I recommend the GSS simulator by Gong Ding. It is powerful, free, open source, and its synthax is based on Medici, a popular TCAD software.
Installation was not trivial, so I am going to provide a step by step guide soon.

Step 0: Install linux
Install linux. Honestly, it's worth it. Major TCAD software runs on linux anyways.
Plus there are lots of open source post-processing tools that help to interpret and analyze simulations. And installing linux is much less painful these days with stuff like Wubi and such...
If you want advice, I personally use Ubuntu 8 and it works pretty well.

What is TCAD, anyway?

TCAD stands for Technology Computer Aided Design, which is not that self-explanatory. What it really refers to is computer programs able to simulate either the workings of a semiconductor device (device simulation) or the fabrication process of a semiconductor device (process simulation).
Often the result of a process simulation, which is called a "mesh" or "grid" is fed into a device simulator to evaluate the performance or the behavior of the device that has been "virtually fabricated".
Simulations are very inexpensive and fast compared to actual prototype fabrication. They are also an excellent tool to understand semiconductor physics.