TABLE OF CONTENTS Even though the operation of the modern Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) transistor was first described by Lilienfield in 1930 [1], it was not until 1960 that the first MOS transistor using silicon as the semiconductor material was reported by Kang and Atalla [2]. The MOS technology became viable only after methods of routinely growing reliable oxides were developed and reported by Snow, Grove, Deal and Sah in 1964 [3]. Since that time the MOS industry has expanded very quickly. Today MOS integrated circuits (ICs) have emerged as the dominant technology in the semiconductor industry. The exponential growth in the number of components per chip and projections for the future are shown in Figure 1.1 [4]. Also shown is the minimum feature size that can be produced on a chip. The dotted lines are projections for the future. Clearly with this technology it is now possible to have more than a million transistors on a single chip. All this has been possible due to the fact that the basic MOS transistor size has shrunk by a factor of about 20 during the last two decades, from a feature size of 20 ?m to less than a micron. Much of this shrinkage can be attributed to advances in lithography, the use of ion implantation, and low temperature annealing [4].
