During my research for this thesis many people and institutions have assisted me in a considerable manner.
First and foremost, I would like to thank Digital Equipment Corporation at
Hudson (MA) for the financial support provided during my work at the Institute
for Microelectronics. Without this support my stay at the Institute would have
not been possible. In addition, Digital Equipment Corporation has offered me to
join their Advanced Semiconductor Development Group at Hudson for a few months
in 1990, giving me an opportunity to get acquainted with ``the real life in an
industrial environment'' in the area of my research.
I am very grateful for the continuous support, help and encouragement by my
advisor Professor Siegfried Selberherr. His decision to offer me a doctoral
position at his Institute has played an important role in my professional
carrier. I would like to point out his positive attitude to all attractive and
perspective ideas born during my work. In addition, he has played a crucial
role in building a very good working environment at his Institute.
My work has been partially supported by the ``Forschungsförderungsfonds
für die gewerbliche Wirtschaft'', Project 2/285.
The Institute for Power and Electronics at the Faculty of Technical Sciences,
University of Novi Sad, has enabled me a three-years vacancy for the doctor
study in Vienna. The Institute has partially covered some cost of this stay
as well. This support is greatly acknowledged.
Professor Hans W. Pötzl has carefully read the first version of my papers
dealing with the analytical MOSFET modeling and has made several useful remarks
and suggestions to improve them. Professor Dimitrije A. Tjapkin from University
of Belgrade has provided me with several hardly available references and has
given me some useful directions for my work. I should like to express my deep
appreciation to Professor Vojin Cvekic from University of Novi Sad for his
continuous support, genuine encouragement and interest in my results.
Thanks for all my colleagues at the Institute for Microelectronics for a very
good working atmosphere. Specially, I wish to thank my room colleagues
Dr. Hans Kosina and Dipl.Ing. Michael Hackel for friendly and constructive
environment. I am particularly thankful to Dr. H. Kosina for numerous fruitful
discussions on the transport problems and the Monte Carlo technique. Dr. Otto
Heinreichsberger has implemented the basic transient features and an accurate
terminal current calculation in MINIMOS. This has laid the fundament for
my traps-dynamics extension which, finally, has enabled me to analyze
numerically the charge-pumping experiments. Our joint work on this subject has
brought up several valuable results. My colleagues Dipl.Ing. Martin Stiftinger,
Dr. Phillip Lindorfer, Dipl.Ing. Hubert Pimingstorfer and Dipl.Ing. Franz
Fasching have spent a significant time in perfectly maintaining the computer
equipment which I used in my everyday work. I am indebted to Dipl.Ing. Claus
Fischer for his collaboration in developing the new MINIMOS code and
specially, for his patience in solving the everyday problems during
accomplishment this task. Dr. Cristiano Sala has carefully read several of my
papers and has made many suggestions which have remarkably improved the
quality of the English used.
Various people collaborated with me during my work at the ASD Group at Hudson.
I am grateful to Dr. Bruce Fishbein for useful discussions on the experimental
aspects of the - measurements and for providing me with experimental
data. The discussions with Dr. Narain D. Arora on the gate-depletion problem are
greatly acknowledged. Thanks to Dr. Llanda Richardson for managerial support
and to Dr. John Faricelli and Dipl.Ing. Nadim Khalil for the continuous help
with the equipment.
I have the pleasure to thank Professor Sorin Cristoloveanu and Dr. Thierry
Ouisse from LPCS, Grenoble (France) for some very interesting discussions, their
encouragement for studying the charge pumping and for providing me with
experimental data for the SIMOX devices. Dr. Guido Groeseneken and Dr. Geert Van
den bosch from IMEC, Leuven (Belgium) have provided me with experimental data
which was very useful in my study of MOSFET's degradation. In addition, they
have provided me with their unpublished results dealing with the same problems
I studied. I appreciated very much several discussions with this group. I am
also grateful to Dr. Mario G. Ancona from the Naval Research Labs., for
providing me with his papers before publication, which are closely
related to my work. A very appreciated the discussions with
Dr. Marius Orlowski at Motorola, Austin (TX) and with
Dr. Hiroshi Iwai and his group at Toshiba, Kawasaki (Japan).
Finally, the most important for me was the support and love of my parents, family and friends during my stay here.