MIT OpenCourseWare

Browse materialsMIT 6.012 · Fall 2009

Microelectronic Devices and Circuits

Subject: Engineering

Art: not stated, Fletcher's Combined Block Telegraph Apparatus and Bell, 1889 · Public domain

Instructor: Prof. Clifton Fonstad
Term: Fall 2009
Level: Undergraduate
What's inside: 10 problem sets · 12 exams · 8 solutions · 1 lecture note · 1 reading · 42 other files · 4 web pages
Materials open: MIT OCW

Other versions of this course

6.012 · Spring 2009 · Study here
6.012 · Fall 2009 · Study here (this version)
6.012 · Fall 2005 · On MIT OCW ↗

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About this course

Source: MIT OpenCourseWare 6.012 Microelectronic Devices and Circuits, Fall 2009, Prof. Clifton Fonstad — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: MIT's own listing order, section by section. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.

Materials are grouped the way MIT organized them. A verified, course-wide order has not been established here.

Has MIT solutions 8 files in this course are named by MIT as solutions.

Formula sheets

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · MIT

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Before you start

Prerequisites are not listed here. Check MIT's own syllabus for this course.

This course’s cited books, in our reading lists: Microelectronics: An Integrated Approach

How this course was organized

What's here, and what isn't

MIT's own materials here did not support a verified, course-wide order, so they are grouped by section instead.

Not included here

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MIT's page format for this item wasn't recognized clearly enough to place it safely.
Referenced in a table, but without MIT's own verified order, so it isn't used to claim a sequence.

Materials by section

Grouped by section, as MIT organized them. Not sequenced or ordered.

Syllabus

Lecture Notes

38 files

Assignments

13 files

Exams

18 files

Other materials from this course

µA741 operational amplifierJPEG image Open ↗

MIT OpenCourseWare, Prof. Clifton Fonstad, 6.012 Microelectronic Devices and Circuits, Fall 2009.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Fall 2009 · Open the original course on OCW ↗

Organized by RedLectern, independent of MIT and not endorsed by MIT.

Per-resource rights are recorded on each resource; All-Rights-Reserved items are link-only, never mirrored.

Microelectronic Devices and Circuits

Formula sheets

Before you start

What's here, and what isn't

Not included here

Materials by section

Syllabus

Lecture Notes

Assignments

Exams

Other materials from this course

Lecture 1: Introduction to semiconductors, doping, generation/recombination, TE carrier concentrations. Carrier dynamics and transport: drift.

Lecture 2: Excess populations and minimum carrier lifetime, photoconductivity. Non-uniform concentrations and diffusion. Fick’s first and second laws.

Lecture 3: The five basic equations. Device structures in TE: carriers and electrostatic potential; the 60 mV rule. Poisson’s equation (PE).

Lecture 4: P-n junctions in thermal equilibrium and under reverse bias, the depletion approximation (DA), comparison to PE solution.

Lecture 5: Review reverse biased junctions. Consider forward bias and the special case of minority carrier injection into quasineutral regions.

Lecture 6: Forward biased p-n junctions: carrier injection, i-v characteristics (ideal and real; forward and reverse). Engineering carrier injection.

Lecture 7: Bipolar junction transistors: two coupled diodes, terminal characteristics, regions of operation

Lecture 8: Solar cells and LEDs (light emitting diodes).

Lecture 9: MOS capacitors: the DA applied to two-terminal MOS capacitor accumulation, depletion, and inversion; VFB, VT, QA, and QN

Lecture 10: The three-terminal MOS capacitor. MOSFETs: begin gradual channel approximation (GCA) using DA and ignoring subthreshold carriers.

Lecture 11: Complete GC/DA model for iDS: saturation, channel length modulation. Output characteristics; regions of operation.

Lecture 12: Subthreshold operation of MOSFETs. Development of model; compare to full numerical solution. Compare to/contrast with BJTs.

Lecture 13: Linear equivalent circuits for MOSFETs and BJTs at low and high frequency; transconductance of subthreshold MOSFETs.

Lecture 14: Logic inverter basics. Introduction to CMOS: transfer characteristics, noise margins, optimal device sizing.

Lecture 15: CMOS analysis, continued: switching delays, power dissipation, speed/power trade-offs.

Lecture 16: CMOS analysis, continued: subthreshold leakage, scaling rules, and where it is all going.

Lecture 17: Linear amplifier basics: performance metrics, current source biasing, current mirrors, mid-band range, two-port representation.

Lecture 18: Single-transistor building block stages: common-source, common-gate, and common-drain (follower) stages; characteristics and features.

Lecture 19: Differential amplifiers: large signal transfer characteristics; small signal analysis using common- and difference-mode inputs.

Lecture 20: Multi-stage amplifiers I: cascading diff stages; current source biasing; output stages.

Lecture 21: Multi-stage amplifiers II: active loads, biasing for maximum gain, input and output swings.

Lecture 22: Multi-stage amplifiers III: examples, stage selection, speciality stages, looking at a commercial op-amp schematic. Begin frequency response.

Lecture 23: Frequency response of CS amplifiers, the Miller effect. Intrinsic frequency limitations of MOSFETs. Biasing to maximize speed, power trade-off.

Lecture 24: OCTC method for estimating frequency response. Subthreshold amplifiers for ultra-lower power electronics, frequency performance.

Lecture 25: MOS imagers. Semester wrap-up; life after 6.012.