Acknowledgements

I am greatly indepted to Prof. Peter Knabner for his guidance and assistance, and Prof. Strauß for reading and co-examining this thesis.

I would like to thank Dr. Jürgen Fuhrmann for his program GMS and a lot of helpful information, especially about UNIX. His installation of a lot of useful programs has allowed me (accustomed to VMS) to survive on UNIX. I am very greatful to Dr. Hartmut Langmach for his program program LISSY and for a lot of valuable discussions and to Horst Szillat for his consultation about SGML.

Many thanks to the former DIOS team, especially Dr. Norbert Strecker, for a lot of discussion about a lot of problems connected with semiconductor technology simulation during our comon work and later.

Thanks also to Jürgen Fuhrmann, Bodo Igler, Bernhard Brandel, Guido Kanschat, Ralf Hiptmair, Andrew Cliffe, Bodo Erdmann and others who have spend time to install and test IBG.

Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my wife Swetlana. Without their support and love I could not have finished this thesis.