ENGINEERING TRIPOS PART IB - 2012/2013

PAPER 8 - SELECTED TOPICS (5)

Electrical Engineering

Micro and Nano-electronic Devices:
what is inside your computer

Leaders: Professor W.I. Milne / Professor J. Robertson

Timing: Weeks 1-4 Easter term

Structure: 16 lectures including worked examples, 4 lectures/week

AIMS

The aims of the course are to:

Give the student an appreciation of the scientific understanding, electronic materials, processing technilogy, and the design of the transistors, displays and storage devices inside a modern personal computer.

OBJECTIVES

As specific objectives, students should have:

• An understanding of the concepts of electronic motion in metals and semiconductors and doping in semiconductors.
• The concepts in the design of a field effect transistor.
• The relationship between switching speed and dimensions in transistor design.
• An overview of the technology of processing materials and the impact on transistor design.
• An overview of lithography techniques and the impact on transistor design.
• The technological implications of increased speed and reduced dimensions of transistors
• A vision of potential future developments where transistors have atomic scales.
• An appreciation of the different technologies which can be used for flat panel displays.
• A basic understanding of iquid crystal displays and active matrix liquid crystal displays.
• A basic understanding of how a magnetic storage hard disk drive works, and materials used.

SYLLABUS

1 Ubiquity of Semiconductor Devices (1L)

Semiconductor devices are hugely common in modern life,in cell-phones,computers,TVs,solar cells,lighting (light emitting diodes).How do they work inside?

Electronic devices in computers-Switches.logic,storage.DRAM,SRAM,idea of Moore's law

2 What is a Semiconductor (1L)

• Bonding in metals and semiconductors. Band gaps. Perodic table, Doping.
• The electron as a particle, a pin-ball model for conduction. Mobility, saturated velocity. Worked examples.

4 The MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) (4L)

• Operating concepts of MOSFETs. Transit time. Switching speed. Gate control.
• MESFETs vs MOSFETs. Why Si not GaAs.
• Elementary discussion of Scaling and Moore's law.

5 Technological Challenges (5L)

• Material preparation, lithography - comparison of U.V., electron beam, X-ray.
• Oxidation of silicon
• Etching - wet and dry processes.
• Doping - diffusion, ion implantation, reduction/process limits, metallisation.
• Worked examples.

6 Magnetic storage technology (1L)

• Elementary principles of magnetic storage - BH loops, bits, writing, reading.
• The mechanical design of a modern hard disk drive.
• The material in a disk and read head.

7 Displays (3L)

• Display technologies - electricity into light.
• What are Liquid crystals.
• Active matrix liquid crystal displays.

8 Towards the Future (1L)

• How device dimensions and voltages reduce to give even smaller and faster transistors, towards and atomic scale.

REFERENCES

Please see the Booklist for Part IB Courses for references for this module.

Last updated: MAy 2012