ECE 69500 - Reliability Physics of Nanoelectronic Transistors

Course Details

Lecture Hours: 3 Credits: 3

Counts as:

Experimental Course Offered:

Spring 2013

Requisites:

ECE 60600 Required, Recommended 61200, 65800

Catalog Description:

This course will focus on the physics of reliability of small semiconductor devices. In traditional courses on device physics, the students learn how to compute current through a device in response to applied voltage. However, as transistors are turned on and off trillions of times during the years of operation, gradually defects accumulate within the device so that at some point the transistor does not work anymore. The course will explore the physics and mathematics regarding how and when things break a topic of great interest to semiconductor device engineers.

Required Text(s):

None.

Recommended Text(s):

  1. Advanced Semiconductor Fundamentals , 2 Edition , R.F. Pierret , Prentice Hall , ISBN No. 013061792X
  2. Fundamentals of Modern VLSI Devices , Yuan Taur and Tak H. Ning , Cambridge University Press , 1998 , ISBN No. 0 521 55056 4
  3. Lecture Notes from 2008 (https://engineering.purdue.edu/~ee650/index.htm)
  4. Lecture Notes from 2010 (https://sites.google.com/site/teachingreliabilityclassnotes/2010-word-documents)
  5. Semiconductor Material and Device Characterization , D.K. Schroeder , John Wiley and Sons , ISBN No. 0-471-73906-5

Lecture Outline:

Lectures Major Topics
3 Reliability Physics -- Broad Introduction
3 Spatial Randomness and Nature of Defects
6 Interface Reliability of Semiconductor Devices: NBTI Degradation
4 Interface Reliability of Semiconductor Devices: Hot Carrier Degradation
7 Time-Dependent Dielectric Breakdown
2 Breakdown in Thick Dielectrics
5 Radiation Damage in Semiconductor Devices
4 Statistics of Reliability
4 Theory and Practice of Defect Characterization
2 Concluding Remarks