"Ali, thank you for the links.. I always wish to read up more as well. I've not had to apply my Electronics background on a designing level for over a decade as my primary job is in Telecommunications and the focus is Optics and OC's, HSD networking, HFC plant, DS circuits, DCS and Circuit based switching which is slowing moving to Packet based switching.
"But I still like these type of discussions as I enjoy learning and understanding the barriers that AMD and INTC face."
From what I have seen, Ali's grasp of semiconductor physics is tenuous at best.
I would recommend Sze's "Physics of Semiconductor Devices" and Grove's "Physics and Technology of Semiconductor Devices." (Yes, _that_ Grove.)
Both are old books, but the core physics has not changed in the past 30 years.
There are plenty of more recent survey articles, including some excellent tutorial articles in "Scientific American," but these articles tend to jump into the "cutting edge" stuff (SOI, VLIW, superscalar, etc.), and thus misleads the beginner into thinking he knows something about modern chips when in fact he's lacking a solid understanding of what an MOS transistor really _is_.
--Tim May |
