Advanced CAD System for Electromagnetic MEMS Interactive Analysis

MASKS
PROCESS
FLOW
BOUNDARY
CONDITIONS
MATERIAL
PROPERTIES
VISUALIZATION
3.1.3.2 Client-server architecture
The client side application is presented through a standard frames-capable web browser as seen
in Fig. 3-3. The toolbar on the left allows selection of several submenus, which in turn update
the toolbar and/or the main viewing window to guide the user interactively through the process
of going from a design to device simulation. Most of the submenus consist of dialogs for
information entered directly using standard HTML form objects. The information is transferred
using standard HTTP POST/GET methods and server-side CGI scripts. The use of these
standard transaction mechanisms permits access to a server across a firewall, provided that an
HTTP proxy is available.
As an example transaction, consider the required step of passing the layouts created on the user’s
local machine to the server for geometric modeling. Typically the masks will be created in a
standard layout editor (e.g. L-Edit, Magic, etc.) and exist on the client machine in the form of a
text file. The user will then specify the desired filename in a standard HTML form object that
uses the HTTP POST method to pass the information to the server. The server receives this
information via the HTTP port and runs an appropriate CGI script to create a copy of the file on
the server. An identical mechanism can be used to transfer a file containing the fabrication
process flow (using the the Composite CAD Process Definition Specification [11]).
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GEOMETRY
(SOLID MODEL)
DISCRETIZATION
(MESHING)
SIMULATION
(FEA)
CLIENT SERVER
INTERNET
Figure 3-2: Schematic of client-server architecture for internet-based prototyping.