This Third Edition of Semiconductor Devices offers revised material that reflects many important discoveries and advances in device physics and integrated circuit processing that have taken place over the last decade.

Offering a basic introduction to physical principles of modern semiconductor devices and their advanced fabrication technology, the Third Edition presents students with theoretical and practical aspects of every step in device characterizations and fabrication, with an emphasis on integrated circuits.

HALLMARK FEATURES:

• Covers all key semiconductor devices with up-to-date information and easy-to-understand descriptions.
• Coverage of basic physics and material properties of key semiconductors help students to easily understand the basic properties and offers access to the most up-to-date, accurate values of device/material parameters.
• Provides coverage of all important processing technologies, offering students the opportunity to learn the basic process steps to fabricate various devices, especially integrated circuits.

ALSO NEW TO THE THIRD EDITION:

• Coverage of MOSFETs and Photonic devices expanded to 2 chapters each
• All technology chapters have been thoroughly updated
• Many more worked-out examples and end-of-chapter problems have been added

DESCRIPTION OF THE COVER ILLUSTRATION

The illustration shows a bird's-eye view of a 3-dimensional floating-gate non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM). NVSM is the foundation technology of information storage for all modern electronic systems (e.g., the digital cellular phone, digital camera, personal digital assistant, and global positioning system). NVSM has ushered in the "Digital Age", and pushed forward the electronics industry to become the largest industry in the world.

The device shown has a surrounding floating gate (the central circular section) and two control gates (the upper and lower rectangular sections). The device is a promising candidate for 1 tera-bit (1012 bits) and beyond NVSM chips. Courtesy of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and S. Whang et al of Hynix Semiconductor Inc. (IEEE IEDM Technical Digest, p. 668, 2010).

For a discussion of NVSM and other semiconductor memories, see Chapter 6.