Author Description

An instructive and up-to-date manual for:• Engineers and technicians working in the semiconductor industry in such fields as: circuit design, manufacturing engineering, material and process characterization, quality and reliability assurance, failure analysis.• Graduate students and research scientists in material science and electrical engineering, interested in insulator physics, semiconductor physics, device physics and electronics.Today, silicon technology forms the basis of a worldwide, multi-million dollar component industry. The reasons for this expansioncan be found not only in the physical properties of silicon but also in the unique properties of the silicon-silicon dioxide interface. In spite of steady improvements in fabrication processes, silicon devices are still subject to undesired electrical phenomena referred to as 'instabilities'. These are due mostly to the imperfect nature either of the insulators used and/or of the semiconductor-insulator interface.The problem of instabilities is addressed in this volume which is the result of a fruitful cooperation between engineers working in the silicon industry, research scientists in the filed of micro-electronics, and university professors. The volume will aid circuit manufacturers and circuit users alike to relate unstable electrical parameters and characteristics to the physical defects and impurities which caused them. It may also be used as a textbook, provided the reader is familiar with the basics of materials physics and electronics.