I wish to express my thanks to my advisor Prof. Siegfried Selberherr who made this work possible. Not only he provided funding during my time at the Institute for Microelectronics, he also was a constant source of encouragement and support. His experience and foresight result in a working environment which will rarely be found elsewhere throughout the academic world. Despite of Professor Selberherr's tight schedule he puts strong emphasis on his students and their work. His excellent industrial long term relations open his students doors at the best addresses of the semiconductor industry. I am also indebted to Prof. Wolfgang Fallmann who agreed to take part in the examining committee at a very short notice.
Special thanks goes to Jack Higman, Bill Taylor, and Karl Wimmer from Motorola, Austin/Texas for a very impressive time during my summer internship. They offered me the possibility to get a flavor of the mutual respect which is necessary to maintain a group atmosphere of the sort as they had. My heartfelt thanks go to Matthew Noell for his hospitality as well as the time he spent for introducing me to the city of Austin and its social life.
I wish to express my thanks to Humbert Noll, Andreas Bauer, and Rainer Minixhofer from Austria Mikrosysteme International (AMS, Unterpremstätten) for the excellent working atmosphere at the ``Christian Doppler Laboratory for Integrated Circuits''. During many visits at AMS they provided a hospitable environment which enabled a fruitful cooperation. I am very grateful to Christian Doppler Forschungsgesellschaft, Vienna, Austria for supporting my studies.
It was a pleasure for me to work with so many brilliant people during my time at the Institute for Microelectronics. Tibor Grasser, an impatient enthusiast as he is, not only has pushed my activities concerning SIESTA, but also has he paved my way by the progress he achieved in the device simulation area. Christoph Pichler used his excellent communication skills to focus TCAD framework activities within the Institute. Moreover, in his relentless search for restaurants, he acted as the motor for numerous culinary expeditions during our lunch breaks. Richard Plasun shared the idea of SIESTA and contributed his expertise in optimization, and software technology in general. Michael Stockinger's comments and suggestions helped to develop SIESTA within a comparably short period. When Walter Tuppa was a member of our group I knew whatever came along we had a «debugger of last resort».
Last but not least I am grateful to my family and most notably I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my mother for the devotion to her children until her early death. Finally, I wish to express my love to Eva who brought so much sun into my life.