Students Unedited Comments (Spring 2004) on
ECE 740 -Semiconductor Device Theory and Modeling
Course Contents: I liked that
the course has covered both the fundamental and at the same time the advanced
topics in the Semiconductor Device Theory.
Instructor: Prof. Jamal Deen,
being an experienced professor in this field was so careful about delivering
his knowledge to us during the lectures in form of small hints and comments,
which can not be found in books.
Texts: The text book was really helpful and has
a lot of exercises, which facilitated the self-studying a
lot.
Midterm exams: I didn't like that we have
written both midterm exams after a short lecture, so me personally didn't show
best possible performance in both of them.
Course project: I didn't like that we were asked
to choose the topic of the course project in the second week of classes, before
being introduced to the much more challenging topics that first appeared at the
end to the course. But on the other hand, in many aspects working on the
project made me gain a lot:
First: it will help me a lot in my
research.
Second: it taught me how to review the
literature aiming to build a complete picture on a certain topic.
Third: it helped me to enhance my presentation
and writing abilities, so it was a very good preparation for writing a thesis.
Samar Abdelsayed, Fri,
02 Apr 2004
I am very impressed by the passion and dedication that the
professor gives to the course and teaching. Saying this is by no means to
undermine the quality of the intellectual aspects of the course. The high
quality of the knowledge delivered in the course, however, is somehow expected
considering the academic status of the professor. In my opinion, it is a
challenge for a professor to teach a course passionately after teaching it many
times. In some extreme cases, one may just teach a course once and then repeats
many times. It takes a true educator to teach it every time. Every time is a
new experience. Every time has some new discoveries. Professor Deen is definitely one of these educators.
ECE740 is a core course. It covers the
fundamentals of semiconductor devices. It is desirable to have some advance
subjects in it. It is understandable that is difficult to cover every thing in
one course. But devoting one or two lectures to a research topic may be
feasible and beneficial. It can help students to better connect the basics to
the applications. For the students who come from related field, it will give a
better perspective of what the semiconductor device people are doing.
Finally, it is a pleasure to take the course.
Yu Chen, Graduate
Student, Friday 9 April 2004
I found the course to be informative and helpful with respect
to my research. It gave me a better understanding of the underlying concepts
which I was not able to fully grasp in my undergraduate courses. I also felt
the desire to explore some covered topics more in depth. On the other hand,
given the tight schedule, I am uncertain how this may be accomplished.
Thank you for teaching us, it was a pleasure.
Ehab
El-badry, Graduate Student, Thursday 1 April 2004
The course starts with explaining very import fundamentals
that we kept on using throughout the course. After taking this course I feel
more confident when looking at published work in
this field, even if I do not remember every detail, at least I have a good
overview and link between theory and practice that will hopefully get stronger
with experience in the field. The best part I liked about the course was the
continuous presentation of practical, up to date issues related to
semiconductor devices. The most part I benefited from the course was the
project, since we were free in selecting a topic that we were interested in and
that was related to our research work.
Munir
Eldesouki, Wed, 31 Mar 2004
I really enjoyed the course. I had gone through many of the
topics covered in this course in my undergrad. But this course really helped me
to get a more in depth knowledge on each of the topics covered. Also now I have
really understood how the basic physics behind the materials are working behind
the operation of each devices covered in this course.
About assignments I want to add something. The assignments
were really simple. Solving those problems really helped me a lot to understand
the course contents. But assignments only have 15% .
I prefer to give more weight on the assignments. The assignments can be a bit
harder, but if more weight is given on the assignments, it will be much better
I think. Also there is 60% on the exams. I think for a graduate course more
concentration should be given on assignments and the project work.
Finally I want to mention again that I really enjoyed the
course.
Mohammad Hasanozzaman, Thu, 01 Apr 2004
I think the high light of this course is that is starts from
fundamental concepts of semiconductor. The course spends about half of the
lectures focusing on those fundamental concepts and important theories. It
gives a strong background for further study of the advanced materials. When it
goes to the second part, you will find that almost nothing comes out abruptly.
Feng
Li, Thu, 01 Apr 2004
The course was very instructive, in that it thoroughly
covered the basic physics of semiconductor device theory, and provided a good
number of practical examples and applications of the theory.
The final project allowed exploring in great depth a subject
related to the course but not covered on the lectures.
It would have been desirable to cover some more advanced
physic concepts, but I don't think that would have been possible in the time
allotted, without affecting the more practical topics, or significantly
increasing the course workload.
Juan Carlos Ranuarez, Fri, 2 Apr 2004
7 assignments, 2 midterm exams, 1 project and a final exam
made the course more of an undergraduate course and I think as a graduate
student that this took so much time of graduate work, yet on the other hand
having that much work load made the course more beneficial as compared to other
courses.
Samer
Rizk, Fri, 02 Apr 2004
The EE740 course is very good course in term of detail
explanation of physical property of semiconductor devices. It clarifies lots of
uncertainties that I had in undergrad, and I enjoyed the course very much.
However, as a grad course, I think it should be focus on understanding the
material and knowing how to apply it to an individual research work. Hence,
doing project is a very good idea, but tests and exam, I don't think it is
necessary (I prefer to have two projects and assignments).
The other thing I want to mention is the lecture time length.
It would be good if the lecture can split into two sections instead of 3 long
hours. For example, one and half hours on Monday then another one and half
hours on Wednesday .I think this really help for students like me who don't
have a strong back ground on the course topic, because in this case they have
more time to catch up after class. Just as for myself, I found that I can
concentrate well on the first half of the lecture and get most of the stuff,
but then on the second half I usually start to get lost (maybe this can explain
why there are not many responses when you ask us a question in the second
half).
Overall you're a very good professor, I'm happy that I take
your course.
Thank you very much.
Han Su, Fri, 02
Apr 2004
I really enjoy this course. It is challenging, and the lecture
is very interesting, condensed but well organized. The notes have detailed
formula and diagram, and also the references to the more detailed contents of various
books; it could serve as reference when doing research or taking other related
courses. The professor is very nice, encouraging and helpful. Especially the
project gave me a very good chance to study and learn and think independently,
and help me to improve my knowledge structure, relearn my previous courses and
skills and develop my research methods.
The assignments and the tests help me to learn the course in
more details. After this course, I now have the fundamental knowledge about the
semiconductor physics, which is very important for future research on the
optoelectronics and microelectronics. Also, the professor kindly offered me
good chances to listen to his group's seminars, so that I could learn more
advanced topics and help my research on the interdisciplinary manner .
Steven (Minhui) Yan, Thu, 1 Apr 2004
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