ECE 606: Principles of Semiconductor Devices

Making transistors is a complex process that requires unprecedented collaboration among material scientists, solid state physicists, chemists, numerical analysts, and software professionals. And yet, as you will see in part 1 of this course (first 5 weeks), that the basics of current flow though solid state semiconductor devices can be understood by using some elementary concepts of quantum- and statistical-mechanics. In Part 2 (next 5 weeks), we will use this framework to analyze bipolar-transistors (Shockley, 1953). And in Part 3 (last 5 weeks), we will do the same for MOSFETs (Grove, 1967). Although much have changed in the last 30 years - transistors have gotten smaller, MEMS have become an important research area, and cross-disciplinary research in nano-bio-electronic systems is flourishing - yet the simple but powerful concepts that you will learn in this introductory course will still provide you the background and a reference point for all your future research work ( I will give you examples of such new applications as we go along).