ECE
 ECE 606

EE-606: Solid State Devices

Offered: Every Semester
Fall 2012: TTh 12:00 - 1:15pm, CIVL 2101

Course Objective

In the last 50 years, solid state devices like transistors have evolved from an interesting laboratory experiment to a technology with applications in all aspects of modern life. 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.
(We will give you examples of such new applications as we go along).

Announcement

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