System and method for semiconductor topography simulations

A method for performing a topography simulation on a hardware platform that includes a central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU), the method comprising:

• retrieving from a memory device in the hardware platform an initial three-dimensional (3D) structure;
• meshing the initial 3D structure with a 3D voxel grid;
• generating a plurality of particles from a particle source by the CPU;
• for each of the particles, performing a set of operations to determine a topographical modification caused by the corresponding particle, wherein the set of operations comprises:
• calculating a flight path by the GPU based on a ray-tracing method;
• identifying a surface normal of a voxel unit in the 3D voxel grid that intersects the flight path by the GPU;
• passing information describing a moment of the corresponding particle hitting the voxel from the GPU to the CPU;
• and
• evaluating a surface reaction between the corresponding particle and the voxel unit by the CPU;
• and
• regenerating the 3D voxel grid based on the evaluated surface reaction.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method for topography simulating on a physical structure, the method comprising:

• initializing a three-dimensional (3D) voxel grid that represents the physical structure;
• generating a batch of particles by a random number generator executed in a central processing unit (CPU) of the computer;
• ray tracing each of the particles in a plurality of parallel processing threads in a graphics processing unit (GPU) of the computer, wherein a number of the particles equals a number of the parallel processing threads;
• identifying surface normals of a plurality of voxel units in the 3D voxel grid that intersect the particles by the parallel processing threads in the GPU;
• passing information describing moments the particles being intersected by the voxel units in the 3D voxel grid from the GPU to the CPU;
• evaluating reactions between the particles and the voxel units in the 3D voxel grid by the CPU;
• and
• updating the 3D voxel grid based on the evaluated reactions.