We investigate variability of a 32 nm flash memory cell and of 32 nm MOSFETs with a methodology based on sensitivity analysis performed with a limited number of TCAD simulations. We show that - as far as the standard deviation of the threshold voltage is concerned - our method provides results in very good agreement with those from three-dimensional atomistic statistical simulations, with a computational burden that is orders of magnitude smaller. We show that the proposed approach is a powerful tool to understand the role of the main variability sources and to explore the device design parameter space. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.