Microelectronic Circuits

(4-0-0-4)

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

EE Degree: This course is Required for the EE degree.

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

Technical Interest Groups / Course Categories: EE Common Core

Course Coordinator: Doug Yoder

Prerequisites: ECE 2040 [min C] and (MATH 2401 [min C] or MATH 2411 [min C] or MATH 24X1 [T] or MATH 2551 [min C] or MATH 2561 [min C] or MATH 2X51 [T]) and (MATH 2403 [min C] or MATH 2413 [min C] or MATH 24X3 [T] or MATH 2552 [min C] or MATH 2562 [min C] or MATH 2X52 [

Catalog Description

Basic concepts of microelectronic materials, devices and circuits.

Textbook(s)

Microelectronic Circuit Design, Semiconductor Device Fundamentals

Course Outcomes

Compute carrier concentrations for semiconductor materials under a variety of conditions. 

Compute conductivity and resistivity of semiconductor materials under a variety of conditions. 

Compute terminal voltage and current characteristics for pn junction diodes under a variety of conditions. 

Compute terminal voltage and current characteristics for bipolar transistors under a variety of conditions.

Compute terminal voltage and current characteristics for MOS transistors under a variety of conditions. 

Compute terminal voltage and current characteristics for ideal operational amplifiers under a variety of conditions. 

Analyze the DC performance of single-stage analog amplifiers containing these circuit elements. 

Analyze the AC performance of single-stage analog amplifiers containing these circuit elements. 

Analyze the DC performance of simple digital circuits (e.g., inverters and logic gates) containing these circuit elements.

Strategic Performance Indicators (SPIs)

N/A

Topic List

  1. Introduction: Course mechanics, Silicon, Example of silicon devices, Conductivity
  2. Basic Semiconductor Physics: Hydrogen Atom (briefly), Periodic potentials, Band structure, Effective mass, Mobility
  3. Lattices Crystals and Dopants: Metals, Semiconductors and Insulators, Generation/Recombination, Crystal structure, Intrinsic and extrinsic and Doping, Carrier concentrations, electrons and holes, Donor and acceptor states
  4. Fabrication, DOS, Fermi Statistics: Semiconductor Alloys, Carrier density and bandstructure, Fermi Statistics and Fermi level
  5. Carrier Statistics: Temperature and doping effects, Extrinsic semiconductors, Donor/acceptor occupancy, Determination of Fermi Energy, Recombination and Generation
  6. Carrier Transport: Drift  velocity, Effective mass, Mobility and Saturation, Current density, Doping and temperature effects, Energy bands and electrostatic potential
  7. Carrier Transport, Diffusion Fick's Law, Total current, Einstein Relation, Equilibrium
  8. Optical Properties: Absorption, Recombination and Generation
  9. Return to Equilibrium: Low level injection, Quasi Fermi Levels, Direct recombination, Trap assisted
  10. Equations of State: Continuity equation, Minority carrier diffusion equation (MCDE), Special cases of MCDE, Quasi Fermi levels and current
  11. PN Junctions: Current Flow in PN junctions, Diffusion w forward/reverse bias, Junction electrostatics, Depletion region and bias, Quantitative solution, Carrier density and potential, Minority injection and Diffusion, Boundary conditions, Total current, Quasi Fermi Levels, Series resistance, High injection, Examples
  12. Real PN Junctions: Capacitance, Recombination/generation, Avalanche/Zener
  13. Circuit Models: Large signal models, Small Signal Models, Small signal model of PN diodes, Diffusion and Junction capacitance, Simple diode circuits
  14. Photonic devices: Absorption, Photodiodes, Solar Cells, LEDs, Lasers
  15. Intro to Transistors: Structure and nomenclature, Currents/band diagram, Biasing modes, Configurations, Alpha, beta (circuit level)
  16. BJT quantitative derivation: Terminal currents, Ebers Moll model, Active mode currents, Simplified Ebers Moll: ideal current results (use to get output resistance in small sig model), Base width modulation
  17. Small Signal Circuit Model: Small Signal analysis, General 2-port models, admittance parameters, DC analysis; Q point, bias stability, Hybrid pi model, Common Emitter examples, Source and Load impedance
  18. MOS Capacitors: Energy levels and flatband, Static and Biased band shapes, Accumulation, depletion and inversion, NMOS and PMOS, Quantitative solution, Fields and Potentials
  19. MOS Transistor: Qualitative description, Triode regime, Pinch-off and saturations regime, Quantitative derivation, Threshold voltage, Square Law
  20. MOS Transistors: Deviations from ideal, Enhancement and depletion modes, MOSFETs small Signal, Admittance parameters, Terminal gain
  21. DC Aspects of Amplifiers: Bias networks for MOSFETs, Current mirrors
  22. Single Transistor Amplifiers: Inverting amplifiers, CS and CE, Follower Amplifiers CD and CC, Non-inverting Amplifiers CG and CB, Amplifier input and output resistance, Voltage and current amplifiers
  23. Multi-stage Amplifiers: Configurations, Cascaded stages, DC equivalent, AC and small signal, Gain and I/O resistance, Op Amps