OPERA-3d from leading software house Vector Fields Ltd of Oxford is being used by Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates Inc. to shorten the design cycle for new generations of ion implanters that can produce semiconductors with smaller design rules.

Varian is an industry leader in design and manufacture of ion implant systems - semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. An important requirement is shorter beam lines to reduce effects of space charge and TOSCA combined with SCALA, both Vector Fields software packages, is used to predict the interaction of multiple magnets while simultaneously modelling the space charge of the ions, the trajectory of the ion beams and the electric fields within the implanter.