SYMMICTM Users Manual
Version 3.1.6
(TM) Trademark 2008 CapeSym, Inc.

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Device Components

The Components... list of the Device menu shows all the named parts of the device, along with the material that each component is made of. Material colors can be used to determine where in the 3D template each component is located. (To more easily locate a component in the 3D display, change the statusbar text to display the component name based on cursor position.)




The material of a component can be changed by double-clicking on the component with the left mouse button, and then selecting a new material from the pull-down list in the “Made of Material box. For example, changing the Backside Adhesive material to Cu will cause the properties of copper to be used throughout this component, instead of the properties of epoxy. To make this change click the OK button, after which the component parts of the 3D template display will change to the color of the new material.

The “Make same change for all other components check box below the pull-down list allows a material substitution to be quickly propagated to a large number of components. For example, changing the Drain Cap Metal from Au to Air can be extended to replace all Au everywhere in the template with Air, effectively removing the metalization layers from the top of the device.

The “Allow material to equalize check box enables sharing of material settings between devices in a layout. If the box is checked on the same component for two devices in a layout, then changing the material of the component on one device will automatically cause the same change on the other device. The two components will always have the same material. As with the equalization of parameters, the user should modify these settings carefully since they may be important to the proper thermal analysis of layouts.

The “Record temperatures of this component check box at the bottom of the component dialog determines whether the minimum and maximum temperature of the component will be recorded after each simulation run. For more details, see the section on Recording Run Values.

When multiple components are selected in the list by holding the Ctrl or Shift keys down while making a selection, the dialog that opens will display “Multiple components” in the title bar instead of the name of the component being modified. Any change will be applied to all of the selected components when the OK button is pressed. When selecting multiple components for editing, it may be helpful to use the right mouse button to access the context menu. The context menu can also be used to paste a material copied from the materials list onto selected components.




The context menu also includes an option to Hide a component. Hiding a component makes it transparent in the main window, and the material color in the Components list is replaced with a colorless icon. When a component is transparent, the context menu can be used to Show it. All of the hidden components in all devices in a layout can be unhidden by selecting Unhide all components from the View menu.

The degree of transparency of hidden components can be modified using Stipple transparent from the Settings menu. When Stipple transparent is checked, the surfaces of hidden components will be drawn using scattered dots of the material color. When stippling is not used, the surfaces of hidden components are not visible at all.

Be aware that transparency will adversely effect interaction with the model using the cursor. In particular, information displayed on the statusbar based on cursor position may not be accurate when transparency is in use. Transparency only applies to the model, not to the solution mesh. The only way to hide part of the solution mesh is to use slicing.

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