ESI Joins PT-Grid Project for Plasma Modeling, Simulation

PARIS, France, Oct 28, 2009 – ESI Group (ISINFR0004110310), a pioneer and world-leading supplier of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes, announced today its participation in the ‘Plasma Technology (PT) Grid’ project, a 3-year joint initiative funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The main objective of the PT-Grid is to provide small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) the access to complex plasma technological simulations on the basis of the D-Grid computer infrastructure, which provides almost infinite computing and storage capacity; flexibility, adaptability and automation through dynamic and concerted interoperation of networked resources.

The PT-Grid will incorporate or utilize today’s scientific modeling methods for industrial applications. Plasma Technology (PT) is considered one of the most important modern technologies for applications in the semiconductor industry, light source development, welding technology, and in the surface treatment of glass, plastics and metals. Plasma modeling and simulation are of extreme importance for the further development of plasma technology, as the use of grid resources offers considerable potential for user-friendly fundamental research and contract research.

The PT-Grid project is divided in four sub-projects corresponding to different parts of plasma technology; which are:

• simulation of welding and cutting processes,
• magnetohydrodynamic 3D simulation,
• Particle-in-cell Monte Carlo (PIC-MC) simulation of low pressure plasma discharges, and
• Self-consistent kinetic calculation of ion and neutral particle distribution functions behind a plasma boundary layer.

Nine funded industrial and academic project partners working in the fields of information technology, software edition and business management are supporting one or several parts of the projects; along with ten other associated partners from the academic and industrial fields.

ESI GmbH, the German subsidiary of ESI Group, is participating in two of the sub-projects using its ACE+ Suite of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Multiphysics simulation software. ESI’s primary contribution is to investigate the implementation of online available user interfaces for CFD-ACE+ and analyze capabilities for license management and invoicing. Indeed, CFD-ACE+ combines plasma chemistry and transport with electrophysics in an easy to use, integrated environment for a wide range of semiconductor applications, from low pressure non-equilibrium to thermal atmospheric plasmas. ESI GmbH also supports various project partners with software licenses and provides technical support for coupling in-house developments in plasma modeling.

With the integration of CFD-ACE+ into grid-computing environments, ESI will take a leading part in the development of an innovative platform for most sophisticated plasma simulations. Dedicated models to describe certain plasma phenomena and properties, provided by partners inside the PT-Grid initiative, will be coupled with CFD-ACE+ to provide an advanced online available consulting tool for plasma applications to industrial customers. On the basis of several thousand CPU’s inside the D-Grid computer infrastructure, users won’t be held back by hardware issues and will be able to run as many serial or parallel computations as they need for their applications.

“The new online consulting tool and the adaptation of CFD-ACE+ to grid computing  will extend the clientele for ESI’s CFD software and will play an important part in adapting further ESI software solutions for grid computing”, said Wolfgang Ottow, CFD and Multiphysics consulting engineer at ESI GmbH. “ESI customers will benefit from the collaboration with top experts from research associations such as Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology in Greifswald and universities such as the Institute of Theoretical Electrical Engineering in Bochum in the field of plasma research and modeling.”

“As coordinator of the PT-Grid initiative and direct development partner within a sub-project, the INP Greifswald appreciates the participation of ESI GmbH as a representative of a commercial software provider and is looking forward to the partnership in the development of an industry-oriented plasma consulting tool based on ESI’s CFD-ACE+ software and our dedicated knowledge about plasma chemistry and modeling,” declared Thomas Harder, Physicist at INP Greifswald.

For further information, please visit www.pt-grid.de, www.d-grid.de and www.inp-greifswald.de.

About ESI Group

ESI is a world-leading supplier and pioneer of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials. ESI has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications to realistically simulate a product’s behavior during testing, to fine-tune manufacturing processes in accordance with desired product performance, and to evaluate the environment’s impact on product performance. ESI’s products represent a unique collaborative and open environment for Simulation-Based Design, enabling virtual prototypes to be improved in a continuous and collaborative manner while eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company employs over 750 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries. ESI Group is listed in compartment C of NYSE Euronext Paris.

For more information, visit www.esi-group.com.

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