ECE635 1 Introduction

ECE 635
Advanced Semiconductor Devices
Gong Gu
Course website:
http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~ggu1/files/GradHome.html
Fall 2017
Why Semiconductors?
Sometimes we say “solid state”
Information
Image, sound, Information processing
temperature, acquisition (Amps, A/D,
pressure, … (sensors) processors,
tranceivers…)
Information transmission
(wires, busses, cables, optical fibers, or just air!)
• Brains and muscles of the

Information system are made of
processing semiconductors
(tranceivers, Displays
processors, …) • Metals & dielectrics are used as
transmission media
• Why?
What’s common for all the core components?
Light, sound, Voltage, Vout

Vin
temperature, sensor current
pressure, …
Vin A Vout
Vout
output
input Vin
Modulation of some physical quantity (output) by some others
Some kind of gain, conversion ratio, sensitivity, etc

Example: Field-Effect Transistors (FETs)
Semiconductor vs Metal
For SiO2 dielectric, breakdown field Eb ~ 107 V/cm.
No matter how thick it is, the maximum induced
Vin Vout carrier area density is r0Eb/q = 2 × 1013 /cm2.
Vout (Recall Gauss’s law)
Vin
For a 1 m thick Si channel,

FET’s are building blocks. ni = 1.45 × 1010 /cm3,
the background carrier area density is
G ni × 104 cm = 1.45 × 106 /cm2.
S D In principle, the area carrier density, and therefore

the channel conductance, can be modulated by 7
Schematic illustration of a FET
orders of mag!!!
(Si’s next-door neighbor in the periodic table)

For Al, n = 1.8 × 1023 /cm3. Even for 1 nm thin (monolayers!) Al, the background carrier
area density is 1.8 × 1016 /cm2. The conductance can only be modulated by 0.1%!!!
What are semiconductors, anyway???
Crystal structure of Si
http://www.webelements.com/silicon/crystal_structure.html http://onlineheavytheory.net/silicon.html
• Take Si as example: work horse of the semiconductor industry

• Regular, periodic
• Each Si atom are bonded to 4 neighbors
Si: Z = 14, 1s2 2s22p6 3s23p2, group IV

What are semiconductors??? -- Simplified pictures
NaCl
Bond picture
http://knowledgebase.lookseek.com/Chemistry-Bonds-Ionic-Bonding.html
https://infogr.am/how-does-bond-structure-affect-melting-point
Metal: “electron gas” https://keterehsky.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/9-2-semiconductor-diod/
metallic covalent ionic

Energy of electrons
Band picture
This line is fuzzy

Allowed states
empty
filled
metal semiconductor insulator

A Digression: The Vast Field of Electrical Engineering
chemistry Economics
Semiconductor
processing
Materials
science Information theory
Solid- Semiconductor Device
state physics physics circuits
physics Transistor Higher Control theory
level level
Core knowledge body of the device engineer
• Different disciplines are different levels of extraction

• Device engineers are at the junction of many disciplines
• Follow your passion
chemistry Economics
Semiconductor
processing
Materials
level level
• But, each small field can consume one’s entire life

• So, how can one be a good device engineer???
chemistry Economics
Semiconductor
processing
Materials
level level
How can one be a good device engineer???

The big picture!
This course is about the big picture.

This course is tailored to suit your research interest.
Let’s get to know each other!
• Name, year
• Previous exposure to quantum mechanics, solid-state physics, device
physics, processing, ckt design (courses + hands-on)
• Advisor
• Research field, particular topic
• Like it?
Class meeting schedule

Syllabus
Course Objective:
To provide students with an understanding of device physics and advanced
semiconductor device concepts.
Topics
• Review of Semiconductor physics
- Crystal structure, band structures, band structure modification by alloys,
heterostructures, and strain
- Carrier statistics
- Scattering, defects, phonons, mobility, transport in heterostructures
• Device concepts
- pn junction
- MOSFETs, MESFETs, MODFETs, TFTs
- Heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs)
- Semiconductor processing
- Photodiodes, LEDs, semiconductor lasers
- Introduction to nanoelectronics
This is the bottom-up approach. We will take a different approach.

Syllabus (Cont’d)
Reference books
• Jasprit Singh, Physics of Semiconductors and Their Heterostructurs
Reads like somebody’s notes. May not be the most elegant or strict from a physics point of
view, but definitely serves semiconductor folks well. Intriguing and stimulating.
• Jasprit Singh, Semiconductor Devices:Basic Principles
Book by the same author on Devices but including semiconductor physics & processing.
• U. K. Mishra & J. Singh, Semiconductor Device Physics and Design
E-book available on line thru UT Lib.
• Karl Hess, Advanced Theory of Semiconductor Devices
Thin, but covers lots of stuff at advanced levels
• Ben Streetman, Solid State Electronic Devices
From basic physics to device concepts. Oldie goodie.
• S. M. Sze (施敏), Physics of Semiconductor Devices
The “Bible” of device engineers. Not for beginners. Keep it in mind or on your shelf; an
excellent reference book for your future career.
• R. S. Muller & T. I. Kamins, Device Electronics for Integrated Circuits
An undergrad textbook on Si microelectronics, but good to have. I go back to it quite often.
• J. D. Plummer, M. D. Deal, P. B. Griffin, Silicon VLSI technology: fundamentals,
practice and modeling
Best textbook on processing, by the people who developed many of the models.
Syllabus (Cont’d)
Journals
• IEEE Electron Device Letters
• IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
• Applied Physics Letters
• Journal of Applied Physics
Websites
• Wikipedia (Are you kidding? No!)
• Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute
http://www.ioffe.ru/SVA/NSM/
http://www.ioffe.ru/SVA/NSM/Semicond/index.html
Physical properties of many semiconductors.
Syllabus (Cont’d: The Tough Part)
Evaluation
• Classroom participation, performance (15%)
• Homework / Mini projects – simple (50%)
• Term paper: Review of a selected specific area, oral presentation on the topic of
the paper, oral exam (35%)
• The good news: It’s not that tough
- …
- The population is not big. Any distribution does not have much statistical
meaning. Which means, you could all get A’s. On the other hand, you could
…
Back to Business
What answers do you have now?
Long way to go to answer this question.

Homework 1
Calculate the values given in Slide 4 of this Introduction

1. Given a dielectric breakdown field Eb = 107 V/cm for a FET, calculate the
maximum possible induced areal carrier density. Use Gauss’s law. Give your
rationale; show that this value is independent of the dielectric thickness.
2. For Si, the background volume carrier density is ni = 1.45 × 1010 /cm3. What is the
areal background carrier density for a 1 m thick slab of Si? Compare your answer
to the above maximum induced carrier density. For how many orders of magnitude
can you moderate the carrier density?
3. For Al, the volume carrier density n = 1.8 × 1023 /cm3. Assuming you could have 1
nm thin Al, what is the background carrier area density? Compare to the above
maximum induced carrier density, and show that the conductance can only be
modulated by 0.1%.
Note: We mostly use the SI units, where the unit for length is m. In semiconductor
device physics, however, we customarily use cm for length. Make sure you get the
unit right.
No hard deadline. But it’s good to get it done before the semester gets really busy.
Review of Semiconductor Physics
Quantum mechanics
• Shrödinger equation
The equation that scared Einstein
• Stationary states
• Special case: free space
• E-k dispersion: light wave vs de Broglie wave
• The concept of eigenstates
• Wave packets
• The uncertainty principle
If we were to take a bottom-up approach, we would start with talking about these
things, but we take a different approach this semester...

ECE635 1 Introduction

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

ECE635 1 Introduction

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

ECE635 1 Introduction

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

ECE 635

Advanced Semiconductor Devices

• Brains and muscles of the

Light, sound, Voltage, Vout

Modulation of some physical quantity (output) by some others

Some kind of gain, conversion ratio, sensitivity, etc

For a 1 m thick Si channel,

S D In principle, the area carrier density, and therefore

(Si’s next-door neighbor in the periodic table)

• Take Si as example: work horse of the semiconductor industry

Si: Z = 14, 1s2 2s22p6 3s23p2, group IV

Metal: “electron gas” https://keterehsky.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/9-2-semiconductor-diod/

metallic covalent ionic

This line is fuzzy

metal semiconductor insulator

Core knowledge body of the device engineer

• Different disciplines are different levels of extraction

Core knowledge body of the device engineer

• But, each small field can consume one’s entire life

Core knowledge body of the device engineer

How can one be a good device engineer???

This course is about the big picture.

Class meeting schedule

This is the bottom-up approach. We will take a different approach.

What answers do you have now?

Long way to go to answer this question.

Calculate the values given in Slide 4 of this Introduction

• Special case: free space

• E-k dispersion: light wave vs de Broglie wave

• The concept of eigenstates

• The uncertainty principle

You might also like