While TCAD frameworks try to support different aspects of TCAD
applications, with emphasis on the tool control, experiment
generation, and data handling tasks,
virtual fabs aim at modeling the complete VLSI design cycle, from
single process simulation to statistical analysis and optimization.
Widely used applications include
PDF Solution's pdFab [WKKS93],
Silvaco's MASTER framework [HB93],
and TMA's CAESAR [AGJ93].
NORMAN/DEBORA [CBK
93] offers powerful experiment generation
capabilities for response-surface modeling.