The technological progress is closely related to the developments of various materials and tools made of those materials. Even the different ages have been defined in relation to the materials used. Some of the major attributes of the present-day age (i.e., the electronic materials' age) are such common tools as computers and fiber-optic telecommunication systems, in which semiconductor materials provide vital components for various mic- electronic and optoelectronic devices in applications such as computing, memory storage, and communication. The field of semiconductors encompasses a variety...

In recent years, III-V devices, integrated circuits, and superconducting integrated circuits have emerged as leading contenders for high-frequency and ultrahigh speed applications. GaAs MESFETs have been applied in microwave systems as low-noise and high-power amplifiers since the early 1970s, replacing silicon devices. The heterojunction high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT), invented in 1980, has become a key component for satellite broadcasting receiver systems, serving as the ultra-low-noise device at 12 GHz. Furthermore, the heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) has been considered...

This book examines the physical principles behind the operation of high-speed transistors operating at frequencies above 10 GHz and having switching times less than 100 psec. If the 1970s cannot be remembered for the opportunities for creating and extensively using transistors operating at such high speeds, then, the situation has changed radically because of rapid progress in sub micrometer technology for manufacturing transistors and integrated circuits from GaAs and other semiconductor materials and the powerful influx of new physical concepts. Not only have transistors having switching...

Although exploratory and developmental activity in electron beam testing (EBT) 25 years, it was not had already been in existence in research laboratories for over until the beginning of the 1980s that it was taken up seriously as a technique for integrated circuit (IC) testing. While ICs were being fabricated on design rules of several microns, the mechanical ne edle probe served quite adequately for internal chip probing. This scenario changed with growing device complexity and shrinking geometries, prompting IC manufacturers to take note ofthis new testing technology. It required several...

GaAs devices and integrated circuits have emerged as leading contenders for ultra-high-speed applications. This book is intended to be a reference for a rapidly growing GaAs community of researchers and graduate students. It was written over several years and parts of it were used for courses on GaAs devices and integrated circuits and on heterojunction GaAs devices developed and taught at the University of Minnesota. Many people helped me in writing this book. I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Lester Eastman of Cornell University, whose ideas and thoughts inspired me and...

Present-day scienceand technology have become increasingly based on studies and applications of thin films. This is especiallytrue of solid-state physics, semiconduc- tor electronics, integrated optics, computer science, and the like. In these fields, it is necessary to use filmswith an ordered structure, especiallysingle-crystallinefilms, because physical phenomena and effects in such films are most reproducible. Also, active parts of semiconductor and other devices and circuits are created, as a rule, in single-crystal bodies. To date, single-crystallinefilms have been mainly epitaxial (or...