This thesis owes its existence to the help, support, and inspiration of many people. In the first place, I would like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to Prof. Siegfried Selberherr for his support and encouragement during the more than four years of this thesis's work. He has provided for an optimum working environment at the Institute for Microelectronics, where a lack of resources is something unimaginable due to his managerial skills and foresight. His uncompromising quest for excellence significantly shapes everyone at the institute. I am also indebted to Prof. Fritz Paschke, who has not only been a source of enthusiasm and encouragement over many years, but has also agreed to serve on my examining committee on very short notice.
The discussions and cooperations with all of my colleagues have contributed substantially to this work: Stefan Halama has bravely upheld the vision of VISTA as a truly open and generic TCAD framework, laying a sound basis for all future development; Richard Plasun has fearlessly attacked the most intricate of problems, drawing from a rich expertise in software engineering and numerics; Gerhard Schrom has been an inexhaustible source of process and device technology wisdom and a relentless warner of real life's dangers, traps, and pitfalls; Ernst and Karl Strasser have been long-time companions during the undergraduate and graduate years, shaping my mind during many technical and non-technical discussions along the way. Rudolf Strasser has put a lot of enthusiasm and energy into eliminating many shortcomings in various areas, closing the gap between academic research and practical applications; Walter Tuppa has set the pace of implementation with mind-boggling ingenuity and speed. To all members of the group I am very grateful for the cooperative spirit and the excellent working atmosphere, creating a unique setting for intellectual explorations as well as for culinary and Bacchic adventures. I also extend my appreciation to all staff members of the Institute for Microelectronics for their assistance and support.
I am very grateful to Masuda-san and his group at Hitachi's Device Development Center for giving me the opportunity to work and live in Japan for two months as a regular employee, for classes on Japanese society and culture, and for introducing me to the art of the tea ceremony; to Prof. Andrew Neureuther and his group at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of the University of California at Berkeley for accepting me as a visiting researcher for five months, and for many hours of mind-opening discussions on all kinds of TCAD aspects; to Prof. Jan Slotboom, Dr. Peter Stolk, and everyone at the Semiconductor Device Architecture Group at Philips Natlab at Eindhoven for offering me a trainee position, for a fruitful exchange of ideas on practical applications of TCAD, and for the tours to Zeeland and Delft.
Finally, I owe special gratitude to my family for continuous and unconditional support of all my undertakings, scholastic and otherwise.