Development of a user front end software environment for CMD research applications.

The Compute and Memory Device (CMD) group conducts basic and applied research in the field of non-volatile memories, exploring implementations based on different physical principles (ferroelectric, resistive, spin-torque, etc...). The research proceeds along different aspects of the semiconductor devices design: physical, chemical, geometrical, electrical/electromagnetic. These activities generate a substantial amount of experimental data – basic electrical measurements performed on silicon in the lab – which must be suitably handled and made available to all researchers.

A complex infrastructure is put in place to enable, facilitate, and automate to the highest possible degree the production, archival, retrieve, reuse, and post-process of these data. The hardware and software components of this infrastructure are sourced from well-established manufacturers as well as designed and implemented locally by imec, alone or in cooperation with start-ups and other organizations.

The memory group software development team is currently focusing on the redesign of a key component, an imec internally developed software item, which will constitute the user front-end application for a large part of the device electric characterisation measurements system.