Page 14 - Semiconductor For Micro- and Nanotechnology An Introduction For Engineers

Preface

This book addresses the engineering student and practising engineer. It
takes an engineering-oriented look at semiconductors. Semiconductors
are at the focal point of vast number of technologists, resulting in great
engineering, amazing products and unheard-of capital growth. The work
horse here is of course silicon. Explaining how semiconductors like sili-
con behave, and how they can be manipulated to make microchips that
work—this is the goal of our book.

We believe that semiconductors can be explained consistently without
resorting 100% to the complex language of the solid state physicist. Our
approach is more like that of the systems engineer. We see the semicon-
ductor as a set of well-defined subsystems. In an approximately top-down
manner, we add the necessary detail (but no more) to get to grips with
each subsystem: The physical crystal lattice, and charge carriers in lattice
like potentials. This elemental world is dominated by statistics, making
strange observations understandable: This is the glue we need to put the
systems together and the topic of a further chapter. Next we show the the-

Semiconductors for Micro and Nanosystem Technology 13