Physical Foundations of Computer Engineering

(3-0-0-3)

CMPE Degree: This course is Selected Elective for the CMPE degree.

EE Degree: This course is Selected Elective for the EE degree.

Lab Hours: 0 supervised lab hours and 0 unsupervised lab hours.

Technical Interest Groups / Course Categories: Threads / ECE Electives

Course Coordinator: Shimeng Yu

Prerequisites: (ECE 2020 [min C] or ECE 2030 [min C]) and ECE 2040 [min C]

Catalog Description

Basic principles governing the physical realization of computing systems and their relationship to characteristics such as performance, energy, and robustness. Implementation technologies.

Textbook(s)

The Physics of Computing

Course Outcomes

Analyze the digital circuits implementation by silicon CMOS technology.

Strategic Performance Indicators (SPIs)

N/A

Topic List

  1. Interconnects
  2. Semiconductor Physics
    1. From bond model to band model
    2. Carrier statistics (electrons and holes)
    3. Carrier transport (drift and diffusion)
  3. Transistor- MOSFET
    1. p/n junction, I-V, band diagram
    2. MOS-Cap, Electrostatics, band diagram perpendicular to channel
    3. Id-Vd and Id-Vg curves, band diagram along channel
    4. Subthreshold current and standby leakage
  4. CMOS Inverter
    1. Voltage transfer curve
    2. Noise margin
    3. Delay
    4. Power/Energy
  5. Memory Technologies
    1. SRAM
    2. DRAM
    3. FLASH
  6. Advanced CMOS
    1. Scaling
    2. FinFET