Acknowledgment

First and foremost, I want to thank all members of the ``Institut für Mikroelektronik'' for providing an excellent and inspiring working atmosphere. Especially the head of the institute, Professor Siegfried Selberherr, has created an optimum infrastructure, so that a lack of resources is unimaginable. His managerial skills and uncompromising quest for excellence shape all his students significantly during their time at the institute. His worldwide contacts to the semiconductor industry enable his co-workers to gain an insight into real-world problems and are of inestimable value for their future career. I am also indebted to Professor Wolfgang Fallmann who agreed to serve on my examining committee on a very short notice.

Of all my colleagues I want to express my special thanks to: Rainer Sabelka, my room-mate during the past three years, is the best system administrator one can imagine. He introduced me to the secrets of computer programming and was always willing to help. Most important, he became a real friend. We had a lot of fun during all the evenings drinking beer together and talking shop, and I will never forget our canoe trips. Peter Fleischmann was my toughest badminton partner and we had a lot of fun. Andi Stach, my short-time room-mate, is a very good soccer player, our team almost won the academic tournament. With Gerhard Schrom, the man who knows almost everything in the field of microelectronics, I had lot of interesting and evening-filling discussions, not only about microelectronics but also about other important things of life. I would not like to miss them. Wolfgang Pyka working on the etching simulator was of great help in generating some of the plots shown in the thesis. Rui Martins provided some really nice layouts, Ernst Leitner was a great partner for diffusion modeling, and Andi Hössinger was always ready to discuss ion implantation.

I would also like to thank Sheldon Aronowitz from LSI Logic Corporation, Milpitas, California for inviting me to spend a summer-internship in his group. He was always open for interesting discussions and accepted me as a full member of his group. Helmut Puchner, my former room-mate now working at LSI Logic, made my stay so nice that I decided to become his neighbor in California in the near future. I like to remember the weekends at the sea-side and the many lunch hours together.

I am very grateful to Austria Mikro Systeme International AG, Unterpremstätten, Austria, and Christian Doppler Forschungsgesellschaft, Vienna, Austria for supporting my studies. The trips to Unterpremstätten were always a welcome change to daily routine.

I greatly appreciate the guidance of Franz Hlawatsch during my master's thesis, who taught me the importance of exact academic work. I enjoyed working with him on a scientific project before starting my Ph.D. studies.

Finally, I owe special gratitude to my family for continuous and unconditional support: To my mother for proof-reading the thesis and thereby significantly improving my English, to my father for the interest he showed in my studies and the motivation he gave me during those tiring times when I had doubts about my studies, and to Maria for her enduring patience, understanding, and love.

Aerial image of a mask pattern carrying I$\mu$E.