[kragen]

btw the sn7400 is already a fairly advanced ic; something like an uln2003 is closer to 'the simplest real world integrated circuit'

probably the best place to start for this, in a top-down sequence, is the art of electronics by horowitz and hill. it explains how transistors and diodes act in §1.6, §2, and §3, initially explaining transistors with the simplified 'current amplifier' model (which already goes beyond the 'transistor switch' model you're thinking of), then quantitatively with the ebers–moll model; they're focused on how to use this information to design working circuits from discrete components you can put together on a circuit board. camenzind's designing analog chips (available free online) goes into how to use this information to design actual chips (not only does nand2tetris get into things like metastability and noise margin, the authors seem to be confused about what a chip even is, thinking you can make a chip by assembling other chips)

but the ebers–moll model is still not solid-state physics knowledge. so far the best overview i've found of that is madou's 'fundamentals of microfabrication and nanotechnology' which has a couple of chapters about solid-state physics, going into the historical development of quantum mechanics. but it's not really a quantum mechanics textbook; it's just an overview that shows where quantum-mechanical knowledge fits into understanding solid-state physics

'the feynman lectures on physics' is the best quantum mechanics textbook i've found so far, but because my knowledge of quantum mechanics is even more minimal, please don't trust my recommendation on this

hope this helps. good luck in your learning voyage!

[duskwuff]

> btw the sn7400 is already a fairly advanced ic; something like an uln2003 is closer to 'the simplest real world integrated circuit'

If the goal is to explain how logic is implemented in general, skipping bipolar transistors and TTL and jumping directly to MOS may be easier. The behavior of a FET is fairly easy to explain, especially if you don't care about the ohmic region (which you usually don't in logic ICs), and it's straightforward to step from there to a practical implementation of a simple gate like an unbuffered NAND -- the latter of which can be trivially assembled on a breadboard with as little as two FETs and a resistor for a NMOS implementation.

[kragen]

> especially if you don't care about the ohmic region (which you usually don't in logic ICs),

you have to care about the ohmic region to be confident you've safely steered clear of it; at least one fet moves through the ohmic region every time a mos gate's output transitions

rtl is the bipolar equivalent of nmos (see the analog simulation at http://tinyurl.com/ylnljbgz) but you do need base resistors if you're going to try to drive its inputs with voltage sources instead of the outputs of other rtl gates. but you can omit them when the inputs are connected to rtl outputs http://tinyurl.com/ywja8z28

the flip side of that is that, though you need a base resistor to provide a constant logic high to an rtl gate, you can provide a low just by leaving the input open, you don't even need a wire like you do for nmos

bipolar logic is also a lot harder for students to blow up if your lab power supply has a current limit on its output

[throwaway3090]

Some older parts are specifically made to make creating complex PCB-level CMOS gates easy. i.e. https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/cd4007ub.pdf

[throwaway3090]

I think pretty much every sophomore level microelectronics book starts at basic semiconductor physics, works that into pn junctions, then transistors, then amplifiers, then gates and sequential elements.

A typical choice is Sedra & Smith https://learninglink.oup.com/access/sedra8e

But there is no shortage of choices.

[kragen]

sedra & smith is widely considered an excellent recommendation, but on skimming it, it seems that it does not cover solid-state physics at all or even mention any quantum effects; madou does spend a few chapters on solid-state physics, and of course feynman covers elementary quantum mechanics quite comprehensively. sedra & smith does go into a lot more depth on some aspects of chip design than horowitz & hill or even camenzind. it gives the ebers–moll equation in table 6.2, just not by name, and describes the inner workings of transistors in considerably more detail than the other books

horowitz & hill, camenzind, and feynman are much better written than sedra & smith or madou. the quality of the writing in sedra & smith in particular is quite poor; it contradicts itself every few pages, and often says things that require great effort to interpret as a correct statement, at least in the 7th edition i'm looking at

horowitz & hill also have much nicer schematics than sedra & smith or, especially, camenzind