Comment on modeling of minority-carrier transport in nonuniformly doped silicon regions with asymptotic expansions [with reply]

The most important result of a recent paper by Rinaldi [see ibid., vol. 40, p. 2307-17, 1993] was the development of a new, more accurate solution for the saturation current corresponding to a nonuniformly doped semiconductor region. Such a claim of novelty is unacceptable, since the same solution had been published earlier. This comment criticizes the liberal use of the word new in the original paper, as well as the methodology followed to derive the solutions. The Appendix suggests, however, a valuable mathematical transformation that permits a factor seven reduction of the computation time of the saturation current. A reply to the comments is appended.<>