Department of Electronics Engineering

Aligarh Muslim University

Home Assignment
2023-2024
ELE 4120 N: Semiconductor Device Modeling

Answer all questions.

Assume suitable data if missing.
Notations and symbols used have their usual meaning. MM = 10

Values of some constants: Energy gap for Si = 1.12 eV; Thermal voltage (kT/e = 25 mV at room Temp.); Permittivity of
free space (εo = 8.85x10-12 F/m); Permittivity of silicon (εsi = 12 εo) ; Permittivity of oxide (εox = 3.9 εo);
N C  2.8 1019 cm3 NV  1.04 1019 cm3
;

Based on CO-1

1. Differentiate Between the following.

I. Mass and Effective mass of the particle
II. Direct and indirect band gap semiconductor
III. Compensated and Non compensated semiconductor
IV. Degenerate and Non-degenerate semiconductor

1. Describe the following with suitable sketches.

I. Density of states function
II. Fermi Dirac probability function
III. Generation and recombination of carriers
IV. Ambipolar transport equation

3. Explain qualitatively the splitting of allowed and forbidden energy bands for an electron
in crystals. Derive the Einstein’s relation.

4. What do you mean by excess carriers? Explain all generations and recombinations
process in a semiconductor.

5. How the Fermi-Dirac probability function changes with temperature. Assume that the
Fermi Energy level is 0.3 eV below the conduction band energy. At room temperature,
determine probability of a state being occupied by an electron at conduction band energy.
6. A piece of germanium doped with 10  10 16 cm 3 shallow donors is illuminated with light
generating 10  10 15 cm 3 excess electrons and holes. Calculate the quasi-Fermi energies
relative to the intrinsic energy and compare it to the Fermi energy in the absence of
illumination.
7. A 1cm long piece of undoped silicon with a lifetime of 1ms is illuminated with light,
generating Gopt  2  1019 cm.s 1 (gen. rate) electron-hole pairs in the middle of the
silicon.

This bar silicon has ideal Ohmic contacts on both sides. Find the excess electron
density throughout the material using the simple recombination model and assuming
 n   p  1000 cm 2 / V .s Also find the resulting electron current density throughout
the material.

Based on CO-2

1. Explain following:
I. The difference between depletion and diffusion capacitance.
II. Explain the recombination and generation currents in pn junction diodes.
III. Name two breakdown mechanisms in pn junction and explain them.
IV. Define the barrier height of a metal-semiconductor junction. Can the barrier height
be negative?
V. Explain.How does the energy band diagram of a metal-semiconductor junction
change under forward and reverse bias?
VI. How does the depletion layer width change with bias in a PN Junction?

2. What is an abrupt p-n junction? Explain its working using energy band diagram.
Draw the charge and electric field distribution under no bias, Forward bias and reverse Bias.
An abrupt silicon p-n junction consists of a p-type region containing N a  10  1016 cm3
acceptors and an n-type region containing also N a  10  1016 cm3 acceptors in addition to
N d  10  1017 cm3 donors.
I. Calculate the thermal equilibrium density of electrons and holes in the p-type
region as well as both densities in the n-type region.
II. Calculate the built-in potential of the p-n junction.
III. Calculate the built-in potential of the p-n junction at 400K.
 3. What is the ideal Schottky barrier height? Indicate the Schottky barrier height on
Energy band diagram. Sketch the ideal energy band diagram of a metal-semiconductor junction
  s
in which m . Explain why this is an ohmic contact.

4. Consider a chrome-silicon metal-semiconductor junction with N d  10  1017 cm3 .

Calculate the barrier height and the built-in potential. Repeat for a p-type semiconductor
with the same doping density. Assume chromium work function = 4.5 eV. Silicon
electron affinity = 4.05 eV.
5. Consider a chrome-silicon metal-semiconductor junction with N d  10  1017 cm3
Calculate the depletion layer width, the electric field in the silicon at the metal-
semiconductor interface, the potential across the semiconductor and the capacitance per
unit area for an applied voltage of -5 V.

6. An abrupt silicon p-n junction consists of a p-type region containing N a  10  1016 cm3
acceptors and an n-type region containing also N a  10  1016 cm3 acceptors in addition
to N d  10  1017 cm3 donors.
a. Calculate the thermal equilibrium density of electrons and holes in the p-
type region as well as both densities in the n-type region.
b. Calculate the built-in potential of the p-n junction.
c. Calculate the built-in potential of the p-n junction at 400K.

7. Consider an abrupt p-n diode with N a  10  1018 cm3 3 and N d  10  1016 cm3 .
Calculate the junction capacitance at zero bias. The diode area equals 10 4 cm 2 . Repeat
the problem while treating the diode as a one-sided diode and calculate the relative error.

Based on CO-3 and CO-4

Discuss the following.
I. Principle of Operation of BJT
II. Energy Band Diagram in various modes of operation
III. Current components in active mode of operation
IV. Derive the expression of I C as function of VBE
V. Derive the expression for  T γ and δ
VI. Breakdown in BJTs
VII. Minority carrier profile in each mode of operation
VIII. Emitter current crowding
IX. Complete small signal model for BJT
X. How base width modulation is incorporated in Gummel-Poon model

1. What do you mean by gradual channel approximation and charge sheet model of a
MOSFET.

2. For a MOS capacitor with n-type substrate: show the energy band diagram for
accumulation, depletion, intrinsic and inversion region(assuming VFB  0 ) .
 3. Define surface potential and bulk potential. Derive the expression of threshold voltage
of MOSFET.
4. Draw the low and high frequency C-V characteristics , clearly showing the relevant
details for a two terminal MOS structure having 30 nm thick oxide and substarte doping
N A  11015 cm3 . Assume VFB  0 .
5. Discuss second order effects in MOSFETs

6. A bipolar transistor with an emitter current of 1 mA has an emitter efficiency of 0.99, a

base transport factor of 0.995 and a depletion layer recombination factor of 0.998.
Calculate the base current, the collector current, the transport factor and the current gain
of the transistor.

7. Consider a pnp bipolar transistor with emitter doping of N E  10  1018 cm3 and base
doping of N B  10  1017 cm3 . The quasi-neutral region width in the emitter is 1 mm and
0.2 mm in the base. Use  n  1000 cm2 / V .s and  p  300cm 2 / V .s . The minority
carrier lifetime in the base is 10 ns. Calculate the emitter efficiency, the base transport
factor, and the current gain of the transistor biased in the forward active mode.Assume
there is no recombination in the depletion region.

8. Empirically the band gap reduction with doping (N) in Si can be expressed as

Compare the emitter injection efficiency at room temperature for emitter dopings of
N E  1019 cm3 and N E  10 20 cm3 . The base doping in both cases is N B  1018 cm3 .
Assume that xE  xB and DE  DB .
9. For a nonuniform doping profile of the base resulting in a mean electric field of
10 4 V / cm ,compare the drift and diffusion transport at room temperature of the
minority carriers through the base ( xB  0.5m ).
11. For an ideal Si-SiO2 MOS capacitor with t ox  10nm d = , N a  5  1017 cm3 , find the
applied voltage at the SiO2-Si interface required (a) to make the silicon surface
intrinsic, and (b) to bring about a strong inversion. Dielectric permittivities of Si and
SiO2 are 11.9 and 3.9, respectively. T = 296 K.
12. Explain the C-V characteristics of MOS capacitor and MOSFET. A Typical C-V Curve
is shown below. Assume appropriate values and extract all parameters from this C-V
curve.