Electronics 1

<Semiconductors Devices>
Fall 2016
Lecture 01: Introduction
Dr. Hassan Mostafa

.
hmostafa@uwaterloo.ca

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

Cairo University

Course Outline

Course objectives
This course is basically about the major microelectronics
devices that are extremely used in the last 60 years. This
includes diodes and transistors

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

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Course contents

Introduction

Semiconductors physics and basics

Physics and circuit modeling (dc & ac) of:

PN junction

BJT transistor

MOSFET transistor

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

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Course Outline

Instructor:

Dr. Hassan Mostafa

hmostafa@uwaterloo.ca

Textbook:

Course Website:

S. M. Sze, Semiconductor Devices: Physics and Technology,

Wiley & So., ISBN 0471333727, 2001

www.scholar.cu.edu.eg/hmostafa/classes

Office: Top floor of the Communications building (no. 8414)

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

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References

H. Craig Casey (1998).

Devices for Integrated Circuits:
Silicon and III-V Compound Semiconductors,
Wiley & So., ISBN 0471171344.

B. Streetman, S. Banerjee (1999).

Solid State Electronic Devices,
Prentice Hall, ISBN 0130255386.

R. F. Pierret (1995).
Semiconductor Device Fundamentals,
Prentice Hall, ISBN 0201543931.

D. A. Neamen (2003).
Semiconductor physics and devices:
Basic principles,
McGraw-Hill, ISBN~0072321075.

T. F. Bogart (1997).
Electronic devices and circuits,
Prentice Hall, ISBN~0133937607.

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

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Semiconductor Devices
Semiconductor devices are electronic devices that are fabricated
using semiconductor materials such as Silicon, Germanium, and
Gallium Arsenide.
Semiconductor devices are available as discrete components (available
on shelf in electronics stores)
or can be integrated with a large number of similar devices onto a single
chip, called an Integrated Circuit(IC).

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

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Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS)

CMOS is a technology for constructing ICs. This technology
is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, Memories, and other

digital logic circuits.

Microprocessor

Microcontroller

RAM
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Information age

The ability to fabricate billions of

individual components (transistors,
resistors, capacitors, etc.) on a silicon
chip with an area of a few cm2 has
enabled the information age.

Shrinking geometries permit more

devices to be placed in a given are of
silicon.

It is widely expected that these historical

trends will continue for at least another 510 years, resulting in Chips that contain
tens of billions of components.

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First Transistor from Bell Labs (1947)

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Kilby first IC (1958)

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First monolithic integrated circuit

1961
Picture shows a flipflop circuit containing
6 devices, produced in
planar technology.
Source:
R. N. Neyce, Semiconductor
device-and-lead structure,
U.S.Patent 2,981,877

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first microprocessor

1971
Picture shows a
four-bit microprocessor
Intel 4004.

10 m technology

3 mm 4 mm

2300 MOS-FETs

108 kHz clock frequency

Source:
Intel Corporation

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Pentium IV processor

2001
Picture shows a ULSI
chip with 32-bit processor
Intel Pentium 4.
0.18m CMOS technology
17.5 mm 19 mm
42 000 000 components
1.6 GHz clock freuqncy
Source:
Intel Corporation

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Moores Law

In 1965, Gordon Moore predicted that the number of

transistors that can be integrated on a die would double
every 18 to 14 months (i.e., grow exponentially with time).

Amazingly visionary million transistor/chip barrier was

crossed in the 1980s.

2300 transistors, 1 MHz clock (Intel 4004) - 1971

16 Million transistors (Ultra Sparc III)
42 Million, 2 GHz clock (Intel P4) - 2001

Altera currently holds the "world-record" for an FPGA

chip containing more than 30 billion transistors

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Moores Law in Microprocessors

Transistors on microprocessors double every 2 years
1 Billion
Transistors

K
1,000,000
100,000

Pentium III
Pentium II
Pentium Pro
Pentium
i486
i386
80286

10,000
1,000
100
10

8086
Source: Intel

1
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Projected
Courtesy, Intel
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Moore and CMOS Scaling

CMOS scaling will not stay forever, but, forever can be delayed
Moore, 2003
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Clean Rooms
Clean room facility:
Particle free walls, furniture, and accessories must be used
Airflow through 0.3 microns filters

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Clean Rooms
Clean room facility:
Main function of clean rooms is control of particle
contamination
Requires control of air flow, water and chemical filtrations,
human protocol
Class N clean room means fewer than N particles (>0.5 m) in
1 cubic foot of air
Classes types:
Class 10,000
Class 1,000
Class 100
Class 10

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Clean Rooms
Clean room facility:

Class 10,000

Class 1,000

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

Class 100

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Class 10

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Semiconductors: Range of conductivities

-Meaning of conductivity and resistivity
- V = I * R (Ohms law) & R = * L / A

= 1/

S.M.Sze

room temperature!

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Element semiconductors
Period
2

II

III
B

IV
C

V
N

VI
O

3
4
5

Mg
Zn
Cd

Al
Ga
In

Si
Ge
Sn

P
As
Sb

S
Se
Te

Hg

Pb

Bi

Ge was known first as a Semiconductor, then Si replaced Ge because:

-Silicon devices exhibit better properties at room temperature
-High quality silicon dioxide can be grown thermally
- Silicon devices cost much less than any other semiconductor material

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Valence Bonds
&
Energy bands
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Covalent bonds (Electron & Hole)

-At low temperature, electrons are bounded and no conduction occurs.

- As temperature increases, thermal vibrations result in breaking the covalent bonds
- Broken bonds offer free electrons that can be used for conduction
- The empty place of this free electron is called a hole.
-Hole: is a fictitious particle with positive charge moving in opposite direction to the electron

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Electrons and holes in si

E

Conduction band

electron

EC
Prohibited band

Eg = 1.12 eV

EV
Valence band

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hole

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Energy band representation

S.M.Sze

conductor

semiconductor

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insulator

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INTRINSIC CARRIER CONCENTRATION

Intrinsic = no impurities (Pure Silicon)
Fermi distribution function F(E):
The probability that an electron occupies an electronic state with energy E

F (E)
EF
k
T

1
e

( E E F )/kT

Fermi level
Boltzmanns constant
temperature in kelvins

Probability that a hole occupies an electronic state with energy E = 1-f(E)

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Fermi distribution function

F (E)

E
E >> EF

1
e

( E E F )/kT

- How F(E) looks like at T = 0K?

-At a given T > 0, F(E) = ? When:
-E >> EF
-E = EF
-E<<EF

EF

E << EF

0.5

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

- Note that: F(E) is symmetrical

around its axis
F(E)

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INTRINSIC CARRIER CONCENTRATION

Fermi level (EF) is the energy level at which the probability to find an
electron is 0.5 or the probability to find an electron equals the probability to
find a hole.

500 K
300 K
100 K

1eV 1.6 10 19 J
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Fermi distribution function

F (E)

1
e ( E EF )/kT 1

for (E - EF) >>>kT

F (E) e

( E E F )/kT

for (E - EF) <<< kT

EF

F (E) 1 e

0.5

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

( E E F )/kT

F(E)

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Electrical Engineer

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INTRINSIC CARRIER CONCENTRATION

Electron density n : the number of electrons per unit volume (Units: cm-3)
n(E) = the electron density at energy level E
N(E) = density of states = number of allowed energy states per energy

range per unit volume

Number of electrons in the conduction band:

f(E)N(E)dE

EC

This looks like you sum the product of each energy level by the
probability of finding electrons in that energy level

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Density of energy states

in the conduction band:

4
3/ 2
1/ 2
N(E) 3 ( 2me ) (E Ec )
h
in the valence band:

4
3/ 2
1/ 2
N(E) 3 ( 2mh ) (Ev E)
h
where: h Plancs constant, [h] = Js=kg m2 s-1
me effective mass of electron
mh effective mass of hole
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Density of energy states

There are a large number of allowed states in the

conduction band. However, for an intrinsic
semiconductor, the probability of an electron
occupying one of these states is small. Thus, there will
not be many electrons in the conduction band.

There also are a large number of allowed states in the

valence band. the probability of an electron occupying
one of these states in the valence band is nearly unity.
Thus, most of these energy states are occupied by
electrons.

Note that there will be only a few unoccupied electron

states in the valence band, that is, holes, in the
valence band.

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Carrier concentration
density of states

Fermi distribution
function

carrier
concentration

CB

CB

EC
EFi
EV

EG
VB
N(E)

CB

EG
VB
0

n p ni

0.5

n(E)

EG
VB
p(E)

1 F(E)

n(E),p(E)

f(E)N(E)dE

EC
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Electrons in conduction band

Total number of electrons in the conduction band:

f(E)N(E)dE N

(EC EF )/kT

EC

Nc Effective density of states in the conduction band

k Boltzmans constant, [k] = J K-1
For silicon:

2 mn kT
NC 12

2
h

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

3/ 2

For gallium arsenide:

2 mn kT
NC 2

2
h

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3/ 2

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Holes in valence band

Total number of holes in the valence band:

EV

1 f(E)N(E)dE N

(EF EV )/kT

NV Effective density of states in the valence band

2 mh kT
NV 2

2
h

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3/ 2

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Fermi level in intrinsic semiconductor

For an intrinsic semiconductor (thermal equilibrium), the number of
electrons per unit volume in the conduction band is equal to the
number of holes per unit volume in the valence band, that is, n = p =
ni, where ni is the intrinsic carrier density.

Hence:
from:

and:

n p ni
(EC E F )/kT

n NC e
(EF EV )/kT
p NV e

EC EV kT NV
EFi Ei

ln
2
2
NC
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Fermi level in intrinsic semiconductor

EC EV kT NV
EFi Ei

ln
2
2
NC
At room temperature, the second term is much smaller than the
bandgap. Hence, the intrinsic Fermi level E, of an intrinsic
semiconductor generally lies very close to the middle of the bandgap.

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Intrinsic carrier density

n p ni

np ni2

pn NC NV e

Eg /kT

ni NC NV exp Eg / 2kT

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Influence of temperature on ni
300K
1000K

250K

Si
1010

GaAs

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Summary
n

f(E)N(E)dE NC e (EC EF )/kT

EC

EV

(E

f(E)
N(E)dE

N
e
V

EV )/kT

Eg
Eg
EC EV
EFi Ei
EV
EC
2
2
2

pn NC NV e

Eg /kT

Electronics 1-Semiconductor devices

np n

2
i

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