Semiconductor device
For information on semiconductor physics,
semiconductor.
see for signicant conduction, while only very small current
can be achieved when the diode is reverse biased and thus
the depletion region expanded.
Semiconductor devices are electronic components that
exploit the electronic properties of semiconductor materials, principally silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide,
as well as organic semiconductors. Semiconductor devices have replaced thermionic devices (vacuum tubes) in
most applications. They use electronic conduction in the
solid state as opposed to the gaseous state or thermionic
emission in a high vacuum.
Exposing a semiconductor to light can generate electron
hole pairs, which increases the number of free carriers
and thereby the conductivity. Diodes optimized to take
advantage of this phenomenon are known as photodiodes.
Compound semiconductor diodes can also be used to
generate light, as in light-emitting diodes and laser diodes.
Semiconductor devices are manufactured both as single 1 Transistor
discrete devices and as integrated circuits (ICs), which
consist of a numberfrom a few (as low as two) to Main article: Transistor
billionsof devices manufactured and interconnected on Bipolar junction transistors are formed from two pn
a single semiconductor substrate, or wafer.
Semiconductor materials are useful because their behavior can be easily manipulated by the addition of impurities, known as doping. Semiconductor conductivity can
be controlled by the introduction of an electric or magnetic eld, by exposure to light or heat, or by the mechanical deformation of a doped monocrystalline grid; thus,
semiconductors can make excellent sensors. Current conduction in a semiconductor occurs via mobile or free
electrons and holes, collectively known as charge carriers. Doping a semiconductor such as silicon with a small
amount of impurity atoms, such as phosphorus or boron,
greatly increases the number of free electrons or holes
within the semiconductor. When a doped semiconductor contains excess holes it is called "p-type", and when
it contains excess free electrons it is known as "n-type",
where p (positive for holes) or n (negative for electrons)
is the sign of the charge of the majority mobile charge
carriers. The semiconductor material used in devices is
doped under highly controlled conditions in a fabrication
facility, or fab, to control precisely the location and concentration of p- and n-type dopants. The junctions which
form where n-type and p-type semiconductors join together are called pn junctions.
n+
p
nn+
Main article: Diode
An npn bipolar junction transistor structure
A semiconductor diode is a device typically made from
a single pn junction. At the junction of a p-type and
an n-type semiconductor there forms a depletion region
where current conduction is inhibited by the lack of mobile charge carriers. When the device is forward biased
(connected with the p-side at higher electric potential than
the n-side), this depletion region is diminished, allowing
junctions, in either npn or pnp conguration. The
middle, or base, region between the junctions is typically very narrow. The other regions, and their associated terminals, are known as the emitter and the collector.
A small current injected through the junction between
the base and the emitter changes the properties of the
base-collector junction so that it can conduct current even
1
2 SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE MATERIALS
though it is reverse biased. This creates a much larger cated from SiC.
current between the collector and emitter, controlled by Various indium compounds (indium arsenide, indium
the base-emitter current.
antimonide, and indium phosphide) are also being used
Another type of transistor, the eld-eect transistor, op- in LEDs and solid state laser diodes. Selenium sulde
erates on the principle that semiconductor conductivity is being studied in the manufacture of photovoltaic solar
can be increased or decreased by the presence of an cells.
electric eld. An electric eld can increase the number
The most common use for organic semiconductors is
of free electrons and holes in a semiconductor, thereby Organic light-emitting diodes.
changing its conductivity. The eld may be applied by
a reverse-biased pn junction, forming a junction eldeect transistor (JFET) or by an electrode insulated from 2.1 List of common semiconductor devices
the bulk material by an oxide layer, forming a metal
oxidesemiconductor eld-eect transistor (MOSFET).
See also: Electronic component Semiconductors
The MOSFET, a solid-state device, is the most used This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
semiconductor device today. The gate electrode is
charged to produce an electric eld that controls the Two-terminal devices:
conductivity of a channel between two terminals, called
the source and drain. Depending on the type of carrier in
DIAC
the channel, the device may be an n-channel (for electrons) or a p-channel (for holes) MOSFET. Although the
Diode (rectier diode)
MOSFET is named in part for its metal gate, in modern
Gunn diode
devices polysilicon is typically used instead.
IMPATT diode
Semiconductor device materials
Main article: Semiconductor materials
Laser diode
Light-emitting diode (LED)
Photocell
By far, silicon (Si) is the most widely used material in
semiconductor devices. Its combination of low raw material cost, relatively simple processing, and a useful temperature range makes it currently the best compromise
among the various competing materials. Silicon used in
semiconductor device manufacturing is currently fabricated into boules that are large enough in diameter to allow the production of 300 mm (12 in.) wafers.
Phototransistor
Germanium (Ge) was a widely used early semiconductor material but its thermal sensitivity makes it less useful
than silicon. Today, germanium is often alloyed with silicon for use in very-high-speed SiGe devices; IBM is a
major producer of such devices.
Tunnel diode
PIN diode
Schottky diode
Solar cell
Transient-voltage-suppression diode
VCSEL
Zener diode
Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is also widely used in high- Three-terminal devices:
speed devices but so far, it has been dicult to form
large-diameter boules of this material, limiting the wafer
Bipolar transistor
diameter to sizes signicantly smaller than silicon wafers
Darlington transistor
thus making mass production of GaAs devices signicantly more expensive than silicon.
Field-eect transistor
Other less common materials are also in use or under in Insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)
vestigation.
Silicon carbide (SiC) has found some application as the
raw material for blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and is
being investigated for use in semiconductor devices that
could withstand very high operating temperatures and
environments with the presence of signicant levels of
ionizing radiation. IMPATT diodes have also been fabri-
Silicon-controlled rectier
Thyristor
TRIAC
Unijunction transistor
4.2
Metal rectier
Four-terminal devices:
Hall eect sensor (magnetic eld sensor)
Photocoupler (Optocoupler)
Semiconductor device applications
All transistor types can be used as the building blocks of
logic gates, which are fundamental in the design of digital
circuits. In digital circuits like microprocessors, transistors act as on-o switches; in the MOSFET, for instance,
the voltage applied to the gate determines whether the
switch is on or o.
3
the turn of the 20th century they were quite common
as detectors in radios, used in a device called a cats
whisker developed by Jagadish Chandra Bose and others. These detectors were somewhat troublesome, however, requiring the operator to move a small tungsten lament (the whisker) around the surface of a galena (lead
sulde) or carborundum (silicon carbide) crystal until it
suddenly started working. Then, over a period of a few
hours or days, the cats whisker would slowly stop working
and the process would have to be repeated. At the time
their operation was completely mysterious. After the introduction of the more reliable and amplied vacuum
tube based radios, the cats whisker systems quickly disappeared. The cats whisker is a primitive example of a
special type of diode still popular today, called a Schottky
diode....
Transistors used for analog circuits do not act as on-o
switches; rather, they respond to a continuous range of 4.2 Metal rectier
inputs with a continuous range of outputs. Common anaMain article: Metal rectier
log circuits include ampliers and oscillators.
Circuits that interface or translate between digital circuits
Another early type of semiconductor device is the metal
and analog circuits are known as mixed-signal circuits.
rectier in which the semiconductor is copper oxide or
Power semiconductor devices are discrete devices or in- selenium. Westinghouse Electric (1886) was a major
tegrated circuits intended for high current or high voltage manufacturer of these rectiers.
applications. Power integrated circuits combine IC technology with power semiconductor technology, these are
sometimes referred to as smart power devices. Several 4.3 World War II
companies specialize in manufacturing power semiconductors.
During World War II, radar research quickly pushed radar
receivers to operate at ever higher frequencies and the traditional tube based radio receivers no longer worked well.
3.1 Component identiers
The introduction of the cavity magnetron from Britain to
the United States in 1940 during the Tizard Mission reThe type designators of semiconductor devices are ofsulted in a pressing need for a practical high-frequency
ten manufacturer specic. Nevertheless, there have been
amplier.
attempts at creating standards for type codes, and a subset of devices follow those. For discrete devices, for ex- On a whim, Russell Ohl of Bell Laboratories decided to
ample, there are three standards: JEDEC JESD370B in try a cats whisker. By this point they had not been in use
United States, Pro Electron in Europe and Japanese In- for a number of years, and no one at the labs had one. After hunting one down at a used radio store in Manhattan,
dustrial Standards (JIS) in Japan.
he found that it worked much better than tube-based systems.
History of semiconductor device
development
Ohl investigated why the cats whisker functioned so well.
He spent most of 1939 trying to grow more pure versions of the crystals. He soon found that with higher
quality crystals their nicky behaviour went away, but so
Further information: History of electrical engineering
did their ability to operate as a radio detector. One day
he found one of his purest crystals nevertheless worked
well, and interestingly, it had a clearly visible crack near
the middle. However as he moved about the room try4.1 Cats-whisker detector
ing to test it, the detector would mysteriously work, and
then stop again. After some study he found that the beMain article: Cats-whisker detector
haviour was controlled by the light in the roommore light
caused more conductance in the crystal. He invited sevSemiconductors had been used in the electronics eld for eral other people to see this crystal, and Walter Brattain
some time before the invention of the transistor. Around immediately realized there was some sort of junction at
HISTORY OF SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE DEVELOPMENT
the crack.
Further research cleared up the remaining mystery. The
crystal had cracked because either side contained very
slightly dierent amounts of the impurities Ohl could not
removeabout 0.2%. One side of the crystal had impurities that added extra electrons (the carriers of electric
current) and made it a conductor. The other had impurities that wanted to bind to these electrons, making it
(what he called) an insulator. Because the two parts
of the crystal were in contact with each other, the electrons could be pushed out of the conductive side which
had extra electrons (soon to be known as the emitter) and
replaced by new ones being provided (from a battery, for
instance) where they would ow into the insulating portion and be collected by the whisker lament (named the
collector). However, when the voltage was reversed the
electrons being pushed into the collector would quickly
ll up the holes (the electron-needy impurities), and
conduction would stop almost instantly. This junction of
the two crystals (or parts of one crystal) created a solidstate diode, and the concept soon became known as semiconduction. The mechanism of action when the diode is
o has to do with the separation of charge carriers around
the junction. This is called a "depletion region".
4.4
Development of the diode
Armed with the knowledge of how these new diodes
worked, a vigorous eort began to learn how to build
them on demand. Teams at Purdue University, Bell Labs,
MIT, and the University of Chicago all joined forces to
build better crystals. Within a year germanium production had been perfected to the point where military-grade
diodes were being used in most radar sets.
4.5
Development of the transistor
Main article: History of the transistor
trons (or holes) required to be injected would have to be
very large, making it less than useful as an amplier because it would require a large injection current to start
with. That said, the whole idea of the crystal diode was
that the crystal itself could provide the electrons over a
very small distance, the depletion region. The key appeared to be to place the input and output contacts very
close together on the surface of the crystal on either side
of this region.
Brattain started working on building such a device, and
tantalizing hints of amplication continued to appear as
the team worked on the problem. Sometimes the system would work but then stop working unexpectedly. In
one instance a non-working system started working when
placed in water. Ohl and Brattain eventually developed a
new branch of quantum mechanics, which became known
as surface physics, to account for the behaviour. The electrons in any one piece of the crystal would migrate about
due to nearby charges. Electrons in the emitters, or the
holes in the collectors, would cluster at the surface of
the crystal where they could nd their opposite charge
oating around in the air (or water). Yet they could
be pushed away from the surface with the application of
a small amount of charge from any other location on the
crystal. Instead of needing a large supply of injected electrons, a very small number in the right place on the crystal
would accomplish the same thing.
Their understanding solved the problem of needing a very
small control area to some degree. Instead of needing two separate semiconductors connected by a common, but tiny, region, a single larger surface would serve.
The electron-emitting and collecting leads would both be
placed very close together on the top, with the control lead
placed on the base of the crystal. When current owed
through this base lead, the electrons or holes would be
pushed out, across the block of semiconductor, and collect on the far surface. As long as the emitter and collector were very close together, this should allow enough
electrons or holes between them to allow conduction to
start.
After the war, William Shockley decided to attempt the
building of a triode-like semiconductor device. He se- 4.6 The rst transistor
cured funding and lab space, and went to work on the
The Bell team made many attempts to build such a sysproblem with Brattain and John Bardeen.
tem with various tools, but generally failed. Setups where
The key to the development of the transistor was the fur- the contacts were close enough were invariably as fragther understanding of the process of the electron mobil- ile as the original cats whisker detectors had been, and
ity in a semiconductor. It was realized that if there were would work briey, if at all. Eventually they had a pracsome way to control the ow of the electrons from the tical breakthrough. A piece of gold foil was glued to the
emitter to the collector of this newly discovered diode, edge of a plastic wedge, and then the foil was sliced with
an amplier could be built. For instance, if contacts are a razor at the tip of the triangle. The result was two very
placed on both sides of a single type of crystal, current closely spaced contacts of gold. When the wedge was
will not ow between them through the crystal. However pushed down onto the surface of a crystal and voltage apif a third contact could then inject electrons or holes plied to the other side (on the base of the crystal), current
into the material, current would ow.
started to ow from one contact to the other as the base
Actually doing this appeared to be very dicult. If the voltage pushed the electrons away from the base towards
crystal were of any reasonable size, the number of elec- the other side near the contacts. The point-contact tran-
5
1925 patent by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld that they thought
it best that his name be left o the patent application.
Shockley was incensed, and decided to demonstrate who
was the real brains of the operation. A few months later
he invented an entirely new, considerably more robust,
type of transistor with a layer or 'sandwich' structure.
This structure went on to be used for the vast majority of
all transistors into the 1960s, and evolved into the bipolar
junction transistor.
With the fragility problems solved, a remaining problem
was purity. Making germanium of the required purity
was proving to be a serious problem, and limited the yield
of transistors that actually worked from a given batch of
material. Germaniums sensitivity to temperature also
limited its usefulness. Scientists theorized that silicon
would be easier to fabricate, but few investigated this posA stylized replica of the rst transistor
sibility. Gordon K. Teal was the rst to develop a working
silicon transistor, and his company, the nascent Texas Instruments, proted from its technological edge. From the
sistor had been invented.
late 1960s most transistors were silicon-based. Within a
While the device was constructed a week earlier, Brat- few years transistor-based products, most notably easily
tains notes describe the rst demonstration to higher-ups portable radios, were appearing on the market.
at Bell Labs on the afternoon of 23 December 1947, ofA major improvement in manufacturing yield came when
ten given as the birthdate of the transistor. what is now
a chemist advised the companies fabricating semiconducknown as the "pnp point-contact germanium transistors to use distilled rather than tap water: calcium ions
tor" operated as a speech amplier with a power gain of
present in tap water were the cause of the poor yields.
18 in that trial. John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain,
"Zone melting", a technique using a band of molten mateand William Bradford Shockley were awarded the 1956
rial moving through the crystal, further increased crystal
Nobel Prize in physics for their work.
purity.
4.7
Origin of the term transistor
Bell Telephone Laboratories needed a generic name for
their new invention: Semiconductor Triode, Solid Triode, Surface States Triode [sic], Crystal Triode and
Iotatron were all considered, but transistor, coined by
John R. Pierce, won an internal ballot. The rationale for
the name is described in the following extract from the
companys Technical Memoranda (May 28, 1948) [26]
calling for votes:
Transistor. This is an abbreviated combination of the words transconductance or
transfer, and varistor. The device logically belongs in the varistor family, and has the
transconductance or transfer impedance of a
device having gain, so that this combination is
descriptive.
4.8
Improvements in transistor design
Shockley was upset about the device being credited to
Brattain and Bardeen, who he felt had built it behind his
back to take the glory. Matters became worse when Bell
Labs lawyers found that some of Shockleys own writings
on the transistor were close enough to those of an earlier
5 See also
Integrated circuit
VLSI
Category:Semiconductor device fabrication
Thermal processes in semiconductor technology
DLTS
Reliability (semiconductor)
Hybrid IC ( hybrid semiconductor )
6 References
Muller, Richard S. & Theodore I. Kamins (1986).
Device Electronics for Integrated Circuits. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-88758-7.
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