Customer Reviews

Principles of Semiconductor Devices (Oxford Series in Electrical and Computer Engineering)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First off I must say that I would rate this book at least a 4 stars if it were not the fact that I have to use it as homework for one of my classes. Let me explain:

Whenever I read the book it does a fairly good job at explaining the core concepts like what "this" is for or "why" (although note, this is a complex textbook so you will have to read a lot to fully understand a specific concept). It even has some great example of applications that I can easily follow, and I think to myself: "Ok, yeah that makes sense...ok....ok....gotcha.....", but then when I get to the end of a chapter, where they ask all the problem sets, they ask significantly harder problems that DO NOT build off the previous problems or only sort of build off of an example from the chapter.

Essentially each problem requires a thorough understanding of the chapter, which means you REALLY have to understand it. I'm one of those students that has to teach myself the concepts for this class using just the book because my teacher is horrible at explaining and/or teaching. The ability of this book to teach you the principles of semiconductor devices only does half of its job.

This book doesn't really assist in the learning process of the applications and problem sets. I find myself struggling to grasp the math concepts, or applications of them. There IS NOT a solutions manual out there and there aren't answers in the back of the book (well there are some for selected problems, but they doesn't show ANY steps, just the answer).

So to sum up, because the nature of this book is a book on LEARNING the principles of semiconductors it does a fair job at explaining the core concepts of how and why semiconductors work and the specifics of each "how" and "why" (conductivity, diffusion, junctions, doping, etc). But when it comes to the calculations of specific problems or applications, this book does NOT help me at all -- it doesn't make it easy or interesting to learn, its just complicated right away. Nearly everyone else in my class is feeling the same way, none of us know what we're doing when it comes to our homework, so we all end up doing all the homework incorrectly(which is all straight out of the book).

Hopefully this review helps at least a few of you.

The overall development of semiconductors from scratch can be difficult. The practical approach and the step by step rendering process is explained in detail. The review questoins for each chapter and the examples with the solutions in between create for a complete understanding of semiconductor manufactoring.

I have only currently read up to chapter two. Here is what I've noticed about the book. The content in the chapters is very straightfoward and to the point. The summary at the end of the chapter does a good job reviewing the main points and formulas that were in the text. However I found that the questions at the end of the chapter are somewhat vague about what they are asking for and you have to assume several things to get an answer.

I bought this book a month ago and I'm really pleased with it. It explains in a very clear way the most basic principles in quantum mechanics and semiconductor physics to understand the physical principles for the operation of semiconductor devices. The devices itsself are also widely described in a very understandable way.

A.Schrauwen
student KULeuven
master nanoscience and nanotechnology

it is the text book required by course, not so expensive, but i decided to sell it after final exam.