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Leakage (semiconductors)
In electronics, leakage is the gradual transfer of electrical energy across a boundary normally viewed as insulating, such as the spontaneous discharge of a charged capacitor, magnetic coupling of a transformer with other components, or flow of current across a transistor in the "off" state or a reverse-polarized diode. In capacitors Gradual loss of energy from a charged capacitor is primarily caused by electronic devices attached to the capacitors, such as transistors or diodes, which conduct a small amount of current even when they are turned off. Even though this off current is an order of magnitude less than the current through the device when it is on, the current still slowly discharges the capacitor. Another contributor to leakage from a capacitor is from the undesired imperfection of some dielectric materials used in capacitors, also known as ''dielectric leakage''. It is a result of the dielectric material not being a perfect insulator and having some non-zero conducti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronics
Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield of physics and electrical engineering which uses Passivity (engineering), active devices such as transistors, diodes, and integrated circuits to control and amplify the flow of electric current and to convert it from one form to another, such as from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) or from analog signal, analog signals to digital signal, digital signals. Electronic devices have significantly influenced the development of many aspects of modern society, such as telecommunications, entertainment, education, health care, industry, and security. The main driving force behind the advancement of electronics is the semiconductor industry, which continually produces ever-more sophisticated electronic devices and circuits in respo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semiconductor Junction
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping levels are present in the same crystal, they form a semiconductor junction. The behavior of charge carriers, which include electrons, ions, and electron holes, at these junctions is the basis of diodes, transistors, and most modern electronics. Some examples of semiconductors are silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, and elements near the so-called " metalloid staircase" on the periodic table. After silicon, gallium arsenide is the second-most common semiconductor and is used in laser diodes, solar cells, microwave-frequency integrated circuits, and others. Silicon is a critical element for fabricating most electronic circuits. Semiconductor devices can display a range of different useful properties, such as passing current more easily in o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catastrophic Failure
A catastrophic failure is a sudden and total failure from which recovery is impossible. Catastrophic failures often lead to cascading systems failure. The term is most commonly used for structural failures, but has often been extended to many other disciplines in which total and irrecoverable loss occurs, such as a head crash occurrence on a hard disk drive. For example, catastrophic failure can be observed in steam turbine rotor failure, which can occur due to peak stress on the rotor; stress concentration increases up to a point at which it is excessive, leading ultimately to the failure of the disc. In firearms, catastrophic failure usually refers to a rupture or disintegration of the barrel or receiver of the gun when firing it. Some possible causes of this are an out-of-battery gun, an inadequate headspace, the use of incorrect ammunition, the use of ammunition with an incorrect propellant charge, a partially or fully obstructed barrel, or weakened metal in the barrel o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Failure Modes Of Electronics
Electronic components have a wide range of failure modes. These can be classified in various ways, such as by time or cause. Failures can be caused by excess temperature, excess current or voltage, ionizing radiation, mechanical shock, stress or impact, and many other causes. In semiconductor devices, problems in the device package may cause failures due to contamination, mechanical stress of the device, or open or short circuits. Failures most commonly occur near the beginning and near the ending of the lifetime of the parts, resulting in the bathtub curve graph of failure rates. Burn-in procedures are used to detect early failures. In semiconductor devices, parasitic structures, irrelevant for normal operation, become important in the context of failures; they can be both a source and protection against failure. Applications such as aerospace systems, life support systems, telecommunications, railway signals, and computers use great numbers of individual electronic componen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iddq Testing
Iddq testing is a method for testing CMOS integrated circuits for the presence of manufacturing faults. It relies on measuring the supply current (Idd) in the quiescent state (when the circuit is not switching and inputs are held at static values). The current consumed in the state is commonly called Iddq for Idd (quiescent) and hence the name. Iddq testing uses the principle that in a correctly operating quiescent CMOS digital circuit, there is no static current path between the power supply and ground, except for a small amount of leakage. Many common semiconductor manufacturing faults will cause the current to increase by orders of magnitude, which can be easily detected. This has the advantage of checking the chip for many possible faults with one measurement. Another advantage is that it may catch faults that are not found by conventional stuck-at fault test vectors. Iddq testing is somewhat more complex than just measuring the supply current. If a line is shorted to Vd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moore's Law
Moore's law is the observation that the Transistor count, number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and Forecasting, projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empirical relationship. It is an experience-curve law, a type of law quantifying efficiency gains from experience in production. The observation is named after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel and former CEO of the latter, who in 1965 noted that the number of components per integrated circuit had been exponential growth, doubling every year, and projected this rate of growth would continue for at least another decade. In 1975, looking forward to the next decade, he revised the forecast to doubling every two years, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41%. Moore's empirical evidence did not directly imply that the historical trend would continue, nevertheless, his prediction has held si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dopant
A dopant (also called a doping agent) is a small amount of a substance added to a material to alter its physical properties, such as electrical or optics, optical properties. The amount of dopant is typically very low compared to the material being doped. When doped into crystalline substances, the dopant's atoms get incorporated into the crystal lattice of the substance. The crystalline materials are frequently either crystals of a semiconductor such as silicon and germanium for use in solid-state electronics, or transparency and translucency, transparent crystals for use in the production of various laser types; however, in some cases of the latter, noncrystalline substances such as glass can also be doped with impurities. In solid-state electronics using the proper types and amounts of dopants in semiconductors is what produces the p-type semiconductors and n-type semiconductors that are essential for making transistors and diodes. Transparent crystals Lasing media The p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-κ Dielectric
In the semiconductor industry, the term high-κ dielectric refers to a material with a high dielectric constant (κ, kappa), as compared to silicon dioxide. High-κ dielectrics are used in semiconductor manufacturing processes where they are usually used to replace a silicon dioxide gate dielectric or another dielectric layer of a device. The implementation of high-κ gate dielectrics is one of several strategies developed to allow further miniaturization of microelectronic components, colloquially referred to as extending Moore's Law. Sometimes these materials are called "high-k" (pronounced "high kay"), instead of "high-κ" (high kappa). Need for high-κ materials Silicon dioxide () has been used as a gate oxide material for decades. As metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) have decreased in size, the thickness of the silicon dioxide gate dielectric has steadily decreased to increase the gate capacitance (per unit area) and thereby drive current (per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strained Silicon
Strained silicon is a layer of silicon in which the silicon atoms are stretched beyond their normal interatomic distance. This can be accomplished by putting the layer of silicon over a wafer (electronics), substrate of silicon–germanium (). As the atoms in the silicon layer align with the atoms of the underlying silicon germanium layer (which are arranged a little further apart, with respect to those of a bulk silicon crystal), the links between the silicon atoms become stretched, thereby leading to strained silicon. Moving these silicon atoms further apart reduces the atomic forces that interfere with the movement of electrons through the transistors and thus improved electron mobility, mobility, resulting in better chip performance and lower energy consumption. These electrons can move 70% faster allowing strained silicon transistors to switch 35% faster. More recent advances include deposition of strained silicon using organometallic chemistry, metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subthreshold Conduction
Subthreshold conduction or subthreshold leakage or subthreshold drain current is the electric current, current between the source and drain of a MOSFET when the transistor is in subthreshold region, or MOSFET#Modes of operation, weak-inversion region, that is, for gate-to-source voltages below the threshold voltage. The amount of subthreshold conduction in a transistor is set by its Threshold Voltage, threshold voltage, which is the minimum gate voltage required to switch the device between ''on'' and ''off'' states. However, as the drain current in a MOS device varies exponentially with gate voltage, the conduction does not immediately become zero when the threshold voltage is reached. Rather it continues showing an exponential behavior with respect to the subthreshold gate voltage. When plotted against the applied gate voltage, this subthreshold drain current exhibits a Semi-log plot, log-linear slope, which is defined as the subthreshold slope. Subthreshold slope is used as a fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MOSFET
upright=1.3, Two power MOSFETs in amperes">A in the ''on'' state, dissipating up to about 100 watt">W and controlling a load of over 2000 W. A matchstick is pictured for scale. In electronics, the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, MOS FET, or MOS transistor) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which determines the conductivity of the device. This ability to change conductivity with the amount of applied voltage can be used for amplifying or switching electronic signals. The term ''metal–insulator–semiconductor field-effect transistor'' (''MISFET'') is almost synonymous with ''MOSFET''. Another near-synonym is ''insulated-gate field-effect transistor'' (''IGFET''). The main advantage of a MOSFET is that it requires almost no input current to control the load current under steady-state or low-frequency conditions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gate Oxide
The gate oxide is the dielectric layer that separates the metal gate, gate terminal of a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) from the underlying source and drain terminals as well as the conductive channel that connects source and drain when the transistor is turned on. Gate oxide is formed by thermal oxidation of the silicon of the channel to form a thin (5 - 200 nm) insulating layer of silicon dioxide. The insulating silicon dioxide layer is formed through a process of self-limiting oxidation, which is described by the Deal–Grove model. A conductive gate material is subsequently deposited over the gate oxide to form the transistor. The gate oxide serves as the dielectric layer so that the gate can sustain as high as 1 to 5 MV/cm transverse electric field in order to strongly modulate the electrical conductance, conductance of the channel. Above the gate oxide is a thin electrode layer made of a electrical conductor, conductor which can be aluminium ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
