Where/how you figure this out?

By 1) getting into semiconductor processing and process design, 2) getting into device modeling, and 3) becoming an analog IC designer - and, of course, working in the semiconductor industry. In school you focus on upper division and graduate classes in these areas.

Generally you need all three to understand this area well. That's kind of how I fell into it. Leading edge analog design quickly becomes limited by the specifics of your simulation models and your specific process implementation. Usually parameters of process and device become factor in your analog circuit design and you may even adjust physical CAD layout to tweak them.

This is where SPICE models come in. Basically you keep getting new ones added to CAD systems over the last 40 years because of some corner that isn't well modeled. The simplest models (like MOS 1->3 and Gummel-Poon) worked OK for very large devices 40 years ago when SPICE was invented but process shrinks have created lots of nonidealities since (which is the nonideality? the device or the model? :-) ). Nature of the beast.

The simple fact however is that you can never get a device model to actually cover all corners of operation equally well. Such a model doesn't exist and probably never will.

Instead the reality is that you generally need fairly peaked experts extracting parameters and often even creating new models with the caveat that you always have to compromised on the model extraction accuracy to fit the particular application corner you are designing to.

So, for example, if are doing high power, you'll optimize one of the standard models for that corner and sacrifice low power accuracy or vice versa. If you are doing RF/uW devices, you make a different set of compromises than you would if you were doing digital or LF linear. In 40 years it's never become turn-key and automated - the degrees of freedom in the models generally don't properly match those of reality. Too many or too few cause problems with the extraction.

There are other areas related to SPICE model extraction that are very similar with just a small change of emphasis.

These include parametric process measurement which monitors each fabrication step using end-of-line analog testing of specialized test structures. This is more focused with manufacturing process control and device operational integrity "out the door". A side area to this is reliability testing - when with the devices fail in the field (and they will fail). Bread and butter to me. Been doing stuff in this general area for most of my career.

Some books on my shelf are the following (they are so common they are usually referred to by the author's name):

Physics of Semiconductor Devices (Sze)

MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Physics and Technology (Nicollian/Brews)


Semiconductor Device Modeling with Spice (Kielkowski)

SPICE: Practical Device Modeling (Antognetti)

Semiconductor Material and Device Characterization (Schroder)

Failure Mechanisms in Semiconductor Devices (Amerasekera/Najm)

Failure Modes And Mechanisms In Electronic Packages (Singh/Viswanadham)

You can also hang out at /r/chipdesign which is probably the closest subreddit to this area. I'm a moderator there.

Wikipedia has a great intro article on this chip. Youtube also has at least a million great videos showing how to use the 555. This is a chip that as an EE you should absolutely know forwards and backwards. While it's less useful nowadays - thanks to microcontrollers that cost less than a few cents - it's still an amazingly useful chip that can time pretty much anything.

A book to add to your reading list

...which is written by the 555 IC's designer, Hans Camenzind

Ahh, then perhaps try another book (or wikipedia, which tends to have good explanations). I can recommend:

Hu - Modern Semiconductor Devices for Integrated Circuits

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~hu/Book-Chapters-and-Lecture-Slides-download.html

Sze - Physics of Semiconductor Devices

http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Semiconductor-Devices-Simon-Sze/dp/0471143235

Kasap - Principles of Electronic Materials and Devices

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Electronic-Materials-Devices-Kasap/dp/0073104647/

Neamen - An Introduction to Semiconductor Devices

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Semiconductor-Devices-Donald-Neamen/dp/0072987561/

And for entertainment value, Britney Spears' Guide to Semiconductor Physics:

http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm

If these aren't available in your library, you can find perfectly good older editions at abebooks.com for less than $20 with shipping.

The semiconductor will always be at equilibrium ( n*p = n_i) unless acted on by an external energy source, such as a bias voltage or light source. No external source = equilibrium.

Sure!

The Physics of Solar Cells by Jenny Nelson is a nice book. Very dense, a little mathy, and assumes some prior knowledege.

This book by Martin Green is the gold standard, though it is probably less accessible than Nelson's and harder to find.

It's probably necessary to have a good grasp of freshman physics, and it would certainly be helpful to understand classical electrodynamics and some solid state physics, which itself requires a little bit of quantum mechanics.

Necessary math for all of this is some calculus, some differential equations, and some linear algebra.

There may be a much friendlier resource out there; I understand if this is a formidable stack.

During my engineering degree I studied semiconductors extensively. The two books I would recommend to you are Pierret for device fundamentals, and I think this is what I used for device fab. Since your lab does optoelectronics, I'll also recommend Kasap. These are all very much engineering oriented, so they are good if you're looking for a functional understanding of how these devices work.

Also, some of the solid state physics (learning about density of states, electronic structure, etc.) is probably better learned from Mermin and Ashcroft.

Oops, that would have been helpful. Here is the Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/Solid-State-Electronic-Devices-7th/dp/0133356035/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485116262&sr=8-1&keywords=9780133356038

It looks like they only list the global 7th edition though, which is what I already have. I will definitely keep a bookmark around for that site though, definitely will be useful in the future.

The Physics of Solar Cells

Briefly, increasing area of a device will generally increase the total current since the current density is fixed (in most cases). However, increasing the area can reduce the effect of side surface recombination which should increase the open circuit voltage slightly. But for a given device that's relatively large, increasing the area will increase I_sc linearly (as J_sc stays fixed). V_oc would be mostly unaffected.

Eric Bogatin's book "Signal Integrity - Simplified" Howard Johnson's High Speed Digital Design and Mike Peng Li's Jitter, Noise, and Signal Integrity at High-Speed are all fantastic reads if you are looking for dead tree material. if you have a Safari subscription you can read Bogatin's and Li's books for "free"

This is a "must have". It's not a textbook, but rather a manual put together by a large design company in Germany. Since it doesn't come from a textbook publisher the book is very cheap compared to most books (I think you can find cheap new copies on eBay):

• Trilogy of Magnetics - Würth Elektronik
  
  These are two books that I keep in my bookshelf at work:
  
  
• Digital Design and Computer Architecture - Harris
  
  
• Signal and Power Integrity - Bogatin
  
  Plus these:
  
  
• Designing Analog Chips - Hans Camenzind
  
  
• Microelectronic Circuits - Sedra & Smith
  
  [Edit] Added a book to the list

• J. W. Young: A Technique for Producing Ideas
  
  
• B. Cordell: Designing Audio Power Amplifiers
  
  
• K. Johnson: More Than My Share of It All
  
  
• T. Heyerdal: Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft
  
  
• R. Coram: Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
  
  
• T. Frederiksen (used only): Intuitive IC OpAmps

Look no further.

This is, in my opinion, the best resource for semiconductor physics.

I was thinking about using Designing Analog Chips by Hans Camenzind along with The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz as a guide for projects to do. I also recognize its important to know to design digital electronics (even though it may not necessarily be my strength) and know how to do research if I do end up doing the PhD so I was also looking into these books: link 1, link 2, and link 3. Are there any other books I should look into?

+1 for Tsividis. Sze is also good but not exclusive to MOSFETs

If you're looking for a Semiconductor Physics book then Pierret is the standard from what I've seen.

From a circuits and applications side, go read "The Art of Electronics", "Troubleshooting Analog Circuits", and all the app notes from TI, Maxim, National, and Linear.

Need the following:

|Title|ISBN-13|Bounty|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Intro To Semiconductor Devices|9780072987560|$5|
|Introduction to Communication Systems SOLUTION MANUAL|Book ISBN: 9781107022775 [Since no ISBN exists for Solution Manual that I know of.]|$5|

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Semiconductor-Devices-Donald-Neamen/dp/0072987561

Solid State Electronic Devices by Streetman and Banerjee is everything you need to know semiconductor devices and the physics behind them.

Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics by Balanis covers E&M waves

[Electrochemistry at Semiconductor and Oxidized Metal Electrodes by S.R. Morrison] (http://www.amazon.com/Electrochemistry-Semiconductor-Oxidized-Metal-Electrodes/dp/0306405245/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1369131862&sr=8-5&keywords=semiconductor+electrodes)

[Semiconductor Electrochemistry by Rüdiger Memming] (http://www.amazon.com/Semiconductor-Electrochemistry-uuml-diger-Memming/dp/352730147X/ref=sr_1_56?ie=UTF8&qid=1369132009&sr=8-56&keywords=semiconductor+electrodes)

Unfortunately most of the reviews for the book are dismal so I don't think I'm going to spend money for it (and I can't find any PDF's around to preview it).

I did find this book as a result of your suggestion though, thanks!