RESUMO
In the semiconductor industry, the use of new materials has been increasing with the advent of nanotechnology. As critical dimensions decrease, and the number of materials increases, the interactions between heterogeneous materials themselves and processing increase in complexity. Traditionally, applications of ab initio techniques are confined to electronic structure and band gap calculations of bulk materials, which are then used in coarse-grained models such as mesoscopic and continuum models. Density functional theory is the most widely used ab initio technique that was successfully extended to several applications. This paper illustrates applications of density functional theory to semiconductor processes and proposes further opportunities for use of such techniques in process development.