EEE 531--Semiconductor Device Theory I
Fall 2009
Time and place: 2:00-3:15 pm MW, CDS13.
Instructor: Prof. Brian Skromme
Office: ERC 155Phone: 965-8592FAX: 965-8118e-mail:
(Questions may be e-mailed at any time, but please call only during office hours.)
Office hours: 10:40-11:30 am MW and 3:30-4:30 pm TTh. (Other times by appointment; please try to come during the assigned hours unless you have a conflict.)
Final Exam: 12:10-2:00 pm on Monday, December 14th, in the usual classroom.
Catalog Description: Transport and recombination theory, pn and Schottky barrier diodes, bipolar and junction field-effect transistors, and MOS capacitors and transistors. Prerequisite: EEE 436 or equivalent. Note that this pre-requisite will be strictly enforced.
Required Background: A senior level course in semiconductor device physics, roughly equivalent to the material contained in Chs. 1-8 of B.G. Streetman, Solid State Electronic Devices, Vols. I-IV of the Modular Series on Solid State Devices (Pierret and Neudeck), or Chaps. 1-3, 5-8, 10-12, and 14-18 of R.F. Pierret, Semiconductor Device Fundamentals. (The latter is the current EEE 436 text, available in the bookstore.) It is important to be up to date and current on this material as mastery will be assumed.
Required texts
R.F. Pierret, Advanced Semiconductor Fundamentals, 2nd ed. (Vol. VI of the Modular Series on SolidState Devices) (Prentice Education, New Jersey, 2003).
S.M. Sze and Kwok K. Ng, Physics of Semiconductor Devices, 3rd Ed. (Wiley, New Jersey, 2007).
We will cover virtually all of the material in Pierret’s book, with additional material presented in lecture, and portions of Chs. 1, 2, and 4-6 in Sze (Chs. 3, 7, 9-10, and 12-13 are typically covered in 532). However, I will not usually follow the texts closely in the lectures. Readings will be assigned from both books, but you may wish to supplement them as necessary with independent reading from other sources, including the current technical literature. Some homework problems may be assigned from Pierret’s book. Some suggested alternative (additional) readings are listed on pp. 2-3.
If you wish to review basic semiconductor physics, you may at your option purchase all or part of the Lecture Notes I use for EEE 352 (Properties of Electronic Materials) at Alphagraphics,815 W University Dr, #101 in Tempe. Phone: 968-7822.
Grading:Two hour exams...... 45%Final exam...... 35%
Homework...... 20%
EXAMS MUST BE TAKEN AT THE SCHEDULED TIME. NO LATE HOMEWORK WILL BE ACCEPTED.
Plus/minus grades may be assigned consistent with ASU policy. Studying in small groups is permitted, but homework assignments must be completed individually. Collaboration on homework, or use of old homework papers or solution manuals is considered unethical, and will result in serious sanctions. Homework solutions will be available a day or two after the due date.
Calculator Policy: Scientific calculators are required for all exams. Preferably, they should be nonprogrammable. If they are programmable, you should be prepared to show me how to erase their memory completely at the start of each exam or you will not be permitted to use them. Of course, no sharing of calculators or other materials is permitted during exams.
Interactive Excel Spreadsheets for Semiconductor Device Theory
This semester, will be using interactive Excel spreadsheets developed to assist in the teaching and learning of semiconductor device theory. These materials were developed for EEE 436, but should also be useful in this course. Some homework exercises using these materials may be assigned. The spreadsheets will be available under Course Documents on the Blackboard course web site at myasucourses.asu.edu. Important notes: Do NOT try to run these spreadsheets from within Internet Explorer. They will not work properly and the interactive features will be unavailable. Instead, right-click on the file and download it to your local computer first. Then, BEFORE launching the spreadsheet, use Tools/Macro/Security and set your security level in Excel to Medium. Then double click on the downloaded spreadsheet, and answer “Yes” when you are asked to enable macros. If you do not, the spreadsheet will not work properly and the dialog box will not function.
Supplementary Reading
B. Van Zeghbroeck, Principles of Semiconductor Devices, available completely free at (Very good textbook but closer to 436 level.)
H. C. Casey, Jr., Devices for Integrated Circuits—Silicon and III-V Compound Semiconductors (1999). (Undergraduate/beginning graduate-level treatment.)
K. Hess, Advanced Theory of Semiconductor Devices (1988). (Mainly emphasizes semiconductor physics; assumes a knowledge of quantum mechanics.)
E.H. Nicollian and J. Brews, MOS Physics and Technology (1982).
S.M. Sze (ed.), High Speed Semiconductor Devices (1990). (Theory of high speed transistor structures).
Y. Taur and T. Ning, Fundamentals of Modern VLSI Devices (1998). (Excellent text emphasizing physics of modern submicron Si MOS and bipolar devices.)
S. Tiwari, Compound Semiconductor Device Physics (Academic, 1990). (Very detailed discussion of modeling; mostly applies to both Si and compound semiconductors.)
Y. Tsividis, Operation and Modeling of the MOS Transistor (1987). (Excellent source book on advanced MOS theory.)
Shyh Wang, Fundamentals of Semiconductor Theory and Device Physics (1989). (Excellent discussion of semiconductor physics and devices, introductory graduate level.)
S. Wolf, Silicon Processing for the VLSI Era: Volume 3—The Submicron MOSFET (1995). (Advanced treatment of MOSFET physics.)
C.M. Wolfe, N. Holonyak, Jr., and G.E. Stillman, Physical Properties of Semiconductors (1989). (Semiconductor physics and theory of junctions; assumes a background in quantum theory.)
Sheng Li, Semiconductor Physical Electronics (2nd ed.) (2006). (Comprehensive coverage of semiconductor physics and device theory.)
[Britney Spears’ Guide to Semiconductor Physics] (No joke, one of the most detailed and accurate sources of semiconductor device information on the Internet. Better illustrations than most other texts on the subject.)
(A set of Java applets illustrating various ideas in semiconductor physics and devices; useful to illustrate basic ideas, although they are not always highly technically accurate)
(Note the https, not http). (These are numerically based simulations of common devices for educational purposes, and complement the spreadsheets we will be using.)
Other general references
M. Ali Omar, Elementary SolidState Physics (1975). (Good introductory undergraduate solid state physics text; assumes prior knowledge of quantum mechanics.)
C. Kittel, Introduction to SolidState Physics. (Same comment, a little more advanced.)
N.W. Ashcroft and N.D. Mermin, SolidState Physics. (Excellent graduate level text.)
K.F. Brennan, The Physics of Semiconductors (1999). (Good text on semiconductor physics.)
J.S. Blakemore, Semiconductor Statistics (1962). (Classic on semiconductor statistics.)
W. Shockley, Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors (1950). (Classic text.)
C. Kittel and H. Kroemer, Thermal Physics. (Excellent, modern approach to thermodynamics/statistical mechanics.)
R.A. Smith, Semiconductors (1978). (Basic semiconductor physics and structures.)
K. Seeger, Semiconductor Physics (1982). (Same comment.)
B.R. Nag, Electron Transport in Compound Semiconductors, (1980). (Detailed theory of semiconductor transport, assumes quantum theory background.)
H. K. Henisch, Semiconductor Contacts (1984). (Schottky barriers, ohmic contacts.)
E.H. Rhoderick and R.H. Williams, Metal-Semiconductor Contacts, 2nd ed. (1988).
A.Y. Many, Semiconductor Surfaces. (Surface recombination, etc.)
Cheng T. Wang (ed.), Introduction to Semiconductor Technology: GaAs and Related Compounds (1990) (Discussion of GaAs devices and technologies.)
C.T. Sah, Fundamentals of Solid-State Electronics (World Scientific, 1991). (Very detailed and lengthy undergraduate text with some graduate-level material.)
B.G. Streetman, SolidState Electronic Devices. (Standard undergrad. device text.)
E.S. Yang, Microelectronic Devices (1988). (Somewhat more advanced undergrad. text.)
R.M. Warner, Jr. and B.L. Grung, Transistors (1983). (Very thorough and in-depth coverage of elementary semiconductor physics and pn junctions, bipolar and MOS transistors; written mainly for engineers in industry. Good historical coverage.)
R.M. Warner, Jr. and B.L. Grung, Semiconductor Device Electronics (1991). (A later undergraduate version of the above text.)
R.S. Muller and T.I. Kamins, Device Electronics for Integrated Circuits, 2nd ed. (1986). (Good treatment of device theory.)
J.R. Brews, “Physics of the MOS Transistor,” in D. Kahng, ed., Applied SolidState Science, Supplement 2, Part A (1981). (Advanced theory of MOS transistors.)
S.M. Sze (ed.), Modern Semiconductor Device Physics (1998). (Edited volume covering wide range of devices.)
B.J. Baliga, Power Semiconductor Devices (1996). (Excellent treatment of various power switching devices.)
C. Weisbuch and B. Vintner, Quantum Semiconductor Structures (1991). (Introduction to modern quantum-based structures, physics, and devices.)
Omar Manasreh, Semiconductor Heterojunctions and Nanostructures (2005).
Periodicals on semiconductor devices and related topics
IEEE Electron Device Letters. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices. International Electron Device Meeting (Annual Conf. Proceedings). Solid-State Electronics (GB). Applied Physics Letters. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques. Electronics Letters (GB). IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics (optical devices). Semiconductor Science and Technology (GB). Japanese Journal of Applied Physics. Semiconductors and Semimetals (Series). Various other conference proceedings.
APPROXIMATE SYLLABUS
Topics will be selected from among the following, as time permits: (Some of these topics will be covered in EEE 532, which will also treat heterojunctions, microwave, and optical devices.)
I.Review of semiconductor fundamentals (crystal structures, band structure, semiconductor statistics and doping, transport phenomena including drift, diffusion, ambipolar, and hot electron effects, heavy doping effects, Shockley equations).
II. Generation/recombination mechanisms (optical, multi-phonon, Shockley-Read-Hall, Auger, impact ionization).
III. Theory of impact ionization and avalanche breakdown.
IV.Semiconductor electrostatics: the Poisson-Boltzmann equation; accumulation, flat-band, inversion, and depletion regimes; approximate solutions; capacitance; applications to p-n junctions, Schottky diodes, and MOS capacitors.
V. The MOS capacitor (electrostatic analysis, oxide and interface charges, C-V properties).
VI. MOS transistors (gradual channel approximation, body effect, charge control models, velocity saturation and short/narrow channel effects, small signal models, noise properties of FET’s (generally)).
VII. P-n junction theory (built-in voltage and electrostatic solution, current transport mechanisms, quasi-equilibrium approximation, G-R currents, high level injection, tunneling current, transient analysis).
VIII. Bipolar transistors (current gain, high level injection, current crowding and Early effect, Ebers-Moll and Gummel-Poon models, secondary effects, transient analysis, thermal effects). (Part of this covered in 532)
IX. Schottky diodes (thermionic emission, field-aided thermionic emission, field emission, diffusion theory). (Usually covered in 532)
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