Semiconductor technologies continue to evolve and amaze us. New materials, new structures, new manufacturing tools, and new advancements in modelling and simulation form a breeding ground for novel high performance electronic and photonic devices. This book covers all aspects of semiconductor technology concerning materials, technological processes, and devices, including their modelling, design, integration, and manufacturing.High costs, long manufacturing cycles, and enormous increase in computing power are behind a recent rapid progress of the modelling, simulation, optimisation, and design of semiconductor devices. The first two chapters present the state-of-the-art in modelling of semiconductor processes and devices. Several examples are given: simulation of the switching characteristics of SiC GTO, MOSFET DC modelling for distortion analysis, or high-k dielectricsemiconductor modelling.
VIIIOptical technologies are the future of communication systems. Chapter 14 is a review of a device engineering method to provide high functionality of passive nonlinear vertical-cavity devices exploiting saturable absorption in semiconductor MQWs. Chapter 15 is a summary of the stateof-the-art of all-optical flip-flops based on semiconductor technologies. Chapter 16 reviews the current development of optical detection technologies on silicon photonics platform. In chapter 17, the authors describe the design, fabrication technology, and device performance of InP Mach-Zehnder modulator monolithically integrated with semiconductor optical amplifier. In chapter 18, the authors propose a new approach to ultra-fast all-optical signal processing based on quantum dot devices. Chapter 19 discusses present status and future direction of all-optical digital processing through semiconductor optical amplifiers.Finally, chapter 20 presents a new approach to biomedical monitoring and analysis of selected human cognitive processes.