CHIPS at BU – Classes
ENG EK 481 Introduction to Nanotechnology
In this course, students will: 1) learn emergent properties that stem from the properties of nanomaterials and computational quantifications of these properties, 2) gain a scope of the various types of nanomaterials in practice for diverse applications spanning electronics to nanomedicine, and 3) understand the key interactions between nanotechnology and biology in the context of building safer devices, therapeutics and drugs, and biological sensors.
Instructor: Michelle Tepelensky
ENG EC 410 Introduction to Electronics
Principles of diode, BJT, and MOSFET circuits. Graphical and analytical means of analysis. Piecewise linear modeling; amplifiers; digital inverters and logic gates. Biasing and small-signal analysis, microelectronic design techniques. Time-domain and frequency domain analysis and design. Includes lab.
Instructor: M. Selim Ünlü
ENG EC 412 Analog Electronics
Topics include detailed analysis of differential amplifiers, design and principles of operational amplifier including multistage circuit structure, BJT, MOSFET, CMOS, and BiCMOS design principles, active filters and oscillators, negative and positive feedback, and power devices. Includes lab.
Instructor: Alexander Sergienko
ENG EC 471 Physics of Semiconductor Devices
This course addresses the theory of semiconductors and semiconductor electronic devices. The section on the theory of semiconductor includes their crystal structure, energy bands, and carrier concentration in thermal equilibrium as well as carrier transport phenomena (drift, diffusion, generation and recombination, tunneling, high field effects, and thermionic emission). The section on electronic devices addresses the theory of p-n junctions and heterojunctions, of Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT), Thyristors, Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) Capacitors and MOS Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs).
Instructor: Sahar Sharifzadeh
ENG EC 551 Advanced Digital Design with Verilog and FPGA
In this class the students learn how to write HDL models that can be automatically synthesized into integrated circuits such as FPGA. Laboratory and homework exercises include writing HDL models of combinational and sequential circuits, synthesizing models, performing simulation, and fitting to an FPGA by using automatic place and route. The course has lab orientation and is based on a sequence of Verilog design examples.
ENG EC 571 Digital VLSI Circuit Design
Very-large-scale integrated circuit design. Review of FET basics. Functional module design, including BiCMOS, combinational and sequential logic, programmable logic arrays, finite-state machines, ROM, and RAM. Fabrication techniques, layout strategies, scalable design rules, design-rule checking, and guidelines for testing and testability. Analysis of factors affecting speed of charge transfer, power requirements, control and minimization of parasitic effects, survey of VLSI applications. Extensive CAD laboratory accompanies course.
Instructors: Rabia Yazicigil
ENG EC 574 Physics of Semiconductor Materials
This course teaches the relevant notions of quantum mechanics and solid state physics necessary to understand the operation and the design of modern semiconductor devices. Specifically, this course focuses on the engineering aspects of solid state physics that are important to study the electrical and optical properties of semiconductor materials and devices. Particular emphasis is placed on the analysis of the electronic structure of semiconductor bulk systems and low-dimensional structures, the study of the carrier transport properties and the calculation of the optical response that are relevant to the design and optimization of electronics and photonics semiconductor devices. The students will learn to apply the quantum mechanical formalism to the solution of basic engineering device problems (quantum wells, wires, and dots, 2D electron gas) and to perform numerical calculation on more complex systems (band structure calculation of bulk and low dimensional systems).
Instructor: Enrico Bellotti
ENG EC 575 Semiconductor Devices
Fundamentals of carrier generation, transport, recombination, and storage in semiconductors. Physical principles of operation of the PN junction, metal-semiconductor contact, bipolar junction transistor, MOS capacitor, MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor), JFET (Junction Field Effect Transistor), and bipolar junction transistor. Develops physical principles and models that are useful in the analysis and design of integrated circuits.
Instructor: Enrico Bellotti
ENG EC 578 Fabrication Technology for Integrated Circuits
Presentation of fabrication procedures for silicon-integrated circuits: physical properties of bulk and epitaxially grown silicon; silicon processing, such as oxidation, diffusion, epitaxy, deposition, and ion implantation; silicon crystallography, anisotropic etching, photolithography, piezorestivity, and chemical and plasma techniques. The limitations these processes impose on the design of bipolar and MOS devices and integrated circuits are discussed. Design of an integrated circuit and the required processing. Includes lab.
Instructor: Vladimir Kleptsyn
ENG EC 579 Nano/microelectronic Device Technology
The main physical processes and manufacturing strategies for the fabrication and manufacture of micro and nanoelectronic devices will be covered, mostly for silicon, although exciting materials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes will also be covered. A key emphasis here will be on electron- hole transport, band structure, basic quantum effects, and the use of engineering and physical effects to alter semiconductor device performance. Photolithography, a significant factor in manufacturability, will be covered in some detail, and to a lesser degree, so will doping methods, diffusion, oxidation, etching, and deposition. The overall integration with methods and tools employed by device and circuit designers will be covered.
ENG EC 580 Analog VLSI Circuit Design
Anatomy of an operational amplifier using chip design techniques. Applications of op amps in wave-shaping circuits, active filters including capacitive switching. Analog multiplexing and data acquisition circuits, A/D, D/A, S/H are examined. Frequency selective circuits and interface circuits such as optocouplers are analyzed.
ENG EC 774 Semiconductor Quantum Structures and Photonic Devices
Optical properties of semiconductors: interband optical transitions; excitons. Low-dimensional structures: quantum wells, superlattices, quantum wires, quantum dots, and their optical properties; intersubband transitions. Lasers: double-heterojunction, quantum-well, quantum-dot, and quantum-cascade lasers; high-speed laser dynamics. Electro-optical properties of bulk and low-dimensional semiconductors; electroabsorption modulators. Detectors: photoconductors and photodiodes; quantum-well infrared photodetectors.
Instructor: Roberto Paiella
ENG EC 782 Advanced Materials Characterization
This course will discuss the characterization of materials’ atomic and electronic structure. Atomic structure evaluation by x-ray diffraction, selected area- and convergent-beam electron diffraction; microstructure evaluation by transmission electron microscopy, principles of bright-field, dark-field and weak-beam imaging; principles of analytical electron microscopy using EDS, WDS, AES; study of chemical and bonding states by EELS, Raman spectroscopy and XPS/ESCA; laser-based non-destructive evaluation of mechanical properties of materials. Characterization methods for semiconductors include the study of point defects by electron paramagnetic resonance, of transport properties by magnetoresistance and Hall effect, of recombination phenomena by photoluminescennce and of junction properties by capacitance-voltage methods.
Instructor: Karl Ludwig