Course Description: This course will focus on the physics of reliability of small semiconductor devices. In traditional courses on device physics, the students learn how to compute current through a device when a voltage is applied. However, as transistors are turned on and off trillions of times during the years of the operation, gradual defects accumulate within the device so that at some point the transistor does not work anymore. The course will explore the physics and mathematics regarding how and when things break – a topic of great interest to semiconductor industry.

ECE 606: Principles of Semiconductor Devices is recommended if additional background on semiconductor devices is needed.