Only the unique environment and the special constellation of people at the Institute for Microelectronics made it possible to succeed with a project like VISTA, and gave spirit to this work.
Prof. Siegfried Selberherr created this peerless environment, where computing power was just one of the many virtually unlimited resources. His excellent contacts to the semiconductor industry enabled each of his co-workers to gain an insight in real-world problems that helped to shape our personal attitudes in many respects.
I want to thank all of my colleagues for many hours of inspiring and fruitful discussions; what may seem to an outside observer as a leisure chat is indeed the core of academic work where important ideas take shape and pioneering concepts are born. Stefan Halama turned out to be a jack-of-all-trades for VISTA, always trying to improve its practical usefulness. Gerhard Rieger and Hubert Pimingstorfer shared many of my system-administratorial worries and tribulations with me, which were often remedied with an amazing matter-of-factness by Walter Tuppa. Claus Fischer was not only a highly demanded and keen proof reader, he also enjoyed with me my appreciation for high quality music, both actively and passively. Martin Stiftinger was - amongst others - a trusty companion through the past ten years. I am obliged to all other members of the institute who made true teamwork possible and contributed to the success of VISTA.
During my stay at the SONY research facilities in Atsugi, Japan, I got fascinating insights into the Japanese way of living and working. I am thankful to Mikio Mukai, Phil Oldiges, Thomas Böhm, Masahiko Einaga, Tsuyoshi Suzuki and the other members of the TCAD group of SONY Atsugi who patiently introduced me to the peculiarities of social life in Japan.
The VISTA project has been sponsored by the research laboratories of AMS at Unterpremstätten, Austria, Digital Equipment at Hudson, USA, Siemens at Munich, Germany, SONY at Atsugi, Japan, and by the ``Forschungsförderungsfonds für die gewerbliche Wirtschaft'', project 2/285 and project 2/299, as part of the ADEQUAT program (JESSI project BT1B and project BT11), ESPRIT project 7236 and project 8002.
On the very top of all those who I owe more than can be expressed here is my family - thank you all for the entirely non-technical ``things'' which indeed contributed much to this work and outweigh by far any other technical support.