Electronic Materials

This old drawing from the development of a 16 Mbit DRAM shows some of the more important Electronic Materials in their natural environment: As part of an integrated circuit.     We have Silicon, Si, the undoubtedly most important material of electronics and Silicon Dioxide, SiO2, almost as important. We have Aluminium, (Al) - somewhat enriched with a little bit of Cu, Si and whatnot - a material on its way out. Then we have slightly exotic stuff: like Titanium Nitride (TiN) and Tungsten (W). Moreover, we see that the combination if these materials only makes sense if they are in some intricate structure with rather small dimensions. Things even can go wrong, as indicated on the right hand side of the drawing. The question is: Why Si and not GaAs or whatever, why W, TiN, and so on. Why is Al on its way out and what will come in? What are the requirements we have for electronic materials and how do these requirements translate to basic material properties, the manipulation of these properties, and the technologies required to produce the intricate structures that perform that electronic function?     If you want to learn a few things about Electronic Materials: Use this Hyperscript.

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Background Information

	This hyperscript used to be the script to a lecture course. The lecture course has not been given for years and now it is a kind of stand-alone "book". I have done some final editing but did not remove all allusions to the lecture course.
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