Learn to explain what a semiconductor device’s numbers actually mean — not just read them off an instrument or a datasheet. You’ll start with the PN junction, the building block under every diode and transistor: given a measured I–V curve, you’ll attribute its forward-bias rise to diffusion current and its small reverse-bias plateau to drift current, learning to defend that attribution the way a lab report requires. You’ll then calculate MOSFET threshold voltage from real process parameters — substrate doping, oxide thickness, and body-bias voltage — using a guided spreadsheet tool, and connect each parameter to the physical term it controls in the threshold-voltage equation, so a calculated result carries a reason, not just a number. Finally, you’ll read simplified energy-band diagrams to predict how carrier concentration, and therefore device performance, shifts with temperature — and practice reporting that prediction to a skeptical project mentor before the device is ever tested at temperature, the way an early-career researcher would need to. By the end of this course, you will be able to: – Explain how drift and diffusion currents shape the forward and reverse I–V characteristics of a PN junction.
– Calculate MOSFET threshold voltage using given substrate doping, oxide thickness, and body-bias values. – Interpret simplified energy-band diagrams to predict how temperature changes alter carrier concentration and device performance. Comfort with basic algebra (rearranging and evaluating a multi-term equation) and scientific notation, plus introductory exposure to electricity concepts (voltage, current, electric field) — the kind covered in a first physics or circuits course. Basic spreadsheet familiarity (entering values into cells, reading a computed result) is helpful for the Device Parameter Calculator. No prior semiconductor device, circuits, or fabrication experience required.
