Skip to main content

Richard Southwick

Graduate Research Assistant

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Richard Southwick joined the Knowlton Research Group as a Senior in Electrical Engineering in the summer of 2003 under the Micron Summer Research Scholarship. He performed the first charge pumping experiments at Boise State University and presented his findings at the 2003 Micron Summer Technical Conference. Since then, Richard has taken an active part in the research of the gate dielectrics in Simple Integrated Circuit Building Blocks (SICBBs) of 3.2nm and 2.0nm, electrical characterization of nanowires, and various characterization techniques of metal oxide field effect devices.

Richard graduated in 2004 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Boise State University. Richard then continued in the Knowlton Research Group as a graduate student where he received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 2008. Projects he participate on during his masters include: 1) Plasma induced damage in pMOSFETs due to the BOSCH deep reactive ion etch used in the manufacturing of through wafer interconnects, 2) Electrical characterization of test structures and nanowires used in nanofabrication, 3) CMOS inverter, NAND and NOR behavior due to degraded pMOSFETs, 4) energy band simulation software for MOS devices and, 5) a masters thesis performed on “A novel approach to investigate the reliability of titanium nitride/hafnium oxide/silicon dioxide/silicon gate stack”.

Currently Richard Southwick III is a Ph.D. candidate at Boise State University. His doctoral work is focused on low temperature characterization of MOS devices.

Publications and Presentations

Peer Reviewed Journal Publications

R.G. Southwick III, J. Reed, C. Buu, R. Butler, G. Bersuker, W.B. Knowlton, “Limitations of Poole-Frenkel Conduction in Bilayer HfO2/SiO2 MOS Devices”, IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, Accepted for publication (2009)

D. Estrada, M. L. Ogas, R. G. Southwick III, P. M. Price, R. J. Baker, W. B. Knowlton, “Impact of Single pMOSFET Dielectric Degradation on NAND Circuit Performance”, Microelectronics Reliability, 48(3) (2008) p. 354-363.

J. Jozwiak, R. G. Southwick III, V. N. Johnson, W. B. Knowlton, and A. J. Moll, “Integrating through-wafer interconnects with active devices and circuits”, IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging, DOI: 10.1109/TADVP.2007.906235, 31(1) (2008) p. 4-13.

Richard G. Southwick III and William B. Knowlton, “Stacked Dual Oxide MOS Energy Band Diagram Visual Representation Program”, IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, 6(2), (2006) p. 136-145.

Conference Publications

Richard G. Southwick III, William B. Knowlton, Ben Kaczer, and Tibor Grasser, “On The Thermal Activation of Negative Bias Temperature Instability”, oral and paper presentation at the 2009 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop (Oct. 18-22, 2009), p. 36-41.

Richard Southwick III, J. Reed, C. Buu, H. Bui, R. Butler, G. Bersuker, and W.B. Knowlton, “Temperature (5.6-300K) Dependence Comparison of Carrier Transport Mechanisms in HfO2/SiO2 and SiO2 MOS Gate Stacks”, paper presentation at the 2008 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (October 12-16, 2008), p.48-54. Invited to submit an extended version of this paper to IEEE Transactions on Materials and Device Reliability.

D. Araujo, P. Price, J. Brotherton, K. Coonse, R. G. Southwick III, A.J. Moll, J.T. Oxford, and W.B. Knowlton, “On the Nature of Self-Assembled Biomolecular Nanowires for Sensor Applications”, presented at the Workshop on Microelectronic Devices, (Boise, Idaho; April 20, 2007) p. 49-50.

Richard Southwick III, Mark Elgin, Gennadi Bersuker, Rino Choi, and William B. Knowlton, “Preliminary Study of the Breakdown Strength of TiN/HfO2/SiO2/Si MOS Gate Stacks”, paper and poster presentation at the 2006 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (October 2006) p. 146-147.

Ogas M. L., R. G. Southwick III, B. J. Cheek, R. J. Baker, G. Bersuker, W. B. Knowlton, “Survey of Oxide Degradation in Inverter Circuits Using 2.0nm MOS Devices”, in proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (Oct. 2004), pp. 32-36.

Conference Presentations and Posters

Ross M. Butler, Richard G. Southwick III, and William B. Knowlton, “Cryogenic Characterization of Charge Trapping in MOSFET High-? Dielectrics”, poster presentation at the 2009 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop (Fallen Leaf Lake, CA; Oct. 18-22, 2009).

J. Reed, Richard Southwick III and W.B. Knowlton, “Experimental Evidence for Polaron Hopping Conduction in HfO2 – A Cryogenic Study”, poster presentation at the 2008 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (October 12-16, 2008).

Kristy A. Campbell, Morgan Davis, Richard Southwick III, Hieu Bui, Justin Reed, William B. Knowlton, and Jeffrey M. Peloquin, “Chalcogenide-Metal Alloys and Layered Chalcogenide Material Devices for Application in Multi-State Phase-Change Electronic Memory”, invited talk at the 2008 Spring MRS Meeting, (San Francisco, CA; March 24-27, 2008). Received Outstanding Symposium Paper Award. Invited to submit the paper to the Journal of Materials Research.

Richard G. Southwick III, Justin C. Reed, Gennadi Bersuker, and William B. Knowlton, “Preliminary Study of Temperature Dependence of TiN/3nm HfO2/1.1nm SiO2/Si Gated MOSFETs”, poster presentation at the 2007 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (October 15-18, 2007).

Aaron Sup, Richard G. Southwick III, Amit Jain, William B. Knowlton, “Arbitrary Oxide Multi-Layer MIM Energy Band Diagram Program”, poster presentation at the 2007 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (October 15-18, 2007).

Bill Knowlton, David Araujo, Patrick Price, Jason Brotherton, Kendra Coonse, Veronica Hendricks, Ricki Southwick III, Jonathan Henderson, Julie Oxford, Amy Moll, Wan Kuang, and Jake Baker, “Progress Towards a Biomolecular Nanowire Sensor Array for Biomedical Applications”, invited talk presented at the 6th Annual INBRE/COBRE Research Conference, (Moscow, ID; August 6, 2007).

W.B. Knowlton, David Araujo, Patrick Price, Jason Brotherton, Kendra Coonse, Ricki Southwick, Julie Oxford, Amy Moll, Jake Baker, and Wan Kuang, “Development of Biomolecular Nanostructure Sensor Arrays”, presented at the Sensors and Sensor Technology session for the program of the 88th annual meeting of the AAAS, Pacific Division, (Boise, ID; June 2007).

Bill Knowlton, Wan Kuang, David Araujo, Patrick Price, Jason Brotherton, Kendra Coonse, Lincoln Bollschweiler, Ricki Southwick, Julie Oxford, Amy Moll, and Jake Baker, “Nanofabrication of 3D Sensor Arrays for Detection”, Advanced Fuel Cycle Workshop, (Boise, ID; May 8-9, 2007).

Richard Southwick III, Michael Ogas, and William B. Knowlton, “Interactive dual oxide MOS energy band diagram program”, poster presentation at the 2005 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (October 2005).

Betsy J. Cheek, Richard G. Southwick III, Michael L. Ogas, Patrick E. Nagler, David Whelchel, Santosh Kumar, R. Jacob Baker, William B. Knowlton, “Preliminary Soft Breakdown (SBD) Effects In CMOS Building Block Circuits”, poster presentation at 2004 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (Oct. 2004).

Richard G. Southwick III, Vaughn Johnson, Joe Lindsey, Tim Lawrence, Jim Jozwiak, Amy Moll, William B. Knowlton, “Through Wafer Interconnects: Preliminary Investigation Of Plasma Induced Damage In pMOSFETs By BOSCH DRIE”, poster presentation at 2004 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (Oct. 2004).

Ogas, Michael, Richard Southwick III, Betsy Cheek, Carrie Lawrence, Santosh Kumar, Amr Haggag, Jacob Baker, and William Knowlton, “Multiple Waveform Pulse Voltage Stress Technique for Modeling Noise in ultra Thin Oxides”, poster presentation at Workshop on Microelectronics and Electron Devices, (Boise, ID; April 16, 2004).

Ogas, Michael, Dorian Kiri, Ouahid Salhi, Richard Southwick III, Betsy Cheek, William B. Knowlton, “Investigation of ultra Thin Gate Oxide Reliability in MOS Devices and Simple ICs”, poster presentation at Workshop on Microelectronics and Electron Devices, (Boise, ID; April 16, 2004), and at 2004 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (Oct. 2004).

Ogas, M. L., R. G. Southwick III, B. J. Cheek, C. E. Lawrence, S. Kumar, A. Haggag, R. J. Baker, W. B. Knowlton, “Investigation of Multiple waveform pulse voltage stress (MWPVS) technique in ultrathin oxides”, poster presentation at the 2003 IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop, (Oct. 20-23, 2003).

Southwick III, R.G., Betsy Cheek, and William B. Knowlton, “Charge pumping techniques for MOS devices”, oral presentation and poster at the 2003 Micron Foundation Summer Technical Conference, (Boise, ID; August 8, 2003).