Drift-diffusion and computational electronics - still going strong after 40 years!

The field of computational electronics began in a serious way when the so-called semiconductor equations were numerically solved in one, two, and three dimensions. The result was a new tool in the device engineer´s toolkit, and the impact was profound. Much of the subsequent history of the field has consisted of working to improve the description of carrier transport as provided by the drift-diffusion equation. Much has been accomplished, but drift-diffusion based simulations continue to be the mainstay. One reason has to do with the computational burden of more advanced techniques, but another is that drift-diffusion equations have proven to be surprisingly effective even in situations where there were expected to fail. This talk is a brief history of computational electronics with an emphasis on the unreasonable effectiveness of drift-diffusion equations. The talk concludes with thoughts on where things stand and on how computational electronics can best position itself to contribute to a new era of electronics.