I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the many people and institutions who have enabled this work, supported me, and contributed significantly to the success of VISTA.
Prof. Siegfried Selberherr has provided his co-workers with the utmost of everything. His relentless efforts to maintain an optimal working environment, his enormous trust and loyality, and his continuous quest for excellence have granted us access to a unique space where the only limit is individual creativity. During the past five years he has asked approximately 200 times ``Do you need anything more from me?''. He hardly ever got an answer.
I have enjoyed sharing both the work and the incredible fun with my colleagues who have conquered this space with me. Franz Fasching has repeatedly pointed into the direction of rigorosity, thus providing a valuable unity vector; Claus Fischer has always not only been an indispensable, eloquent opponent in many discussions, but also a valueable source of implementations with a high degree of practical utility; Gerhard Hobler and Karl Wimmer have introduced me to the world of process simulation alchemy; Hubert Pimingstorfer has done a great job in proving the practical utility of VISTA; Christoph Pichler has earned my special gratitude for many things, but mostly for the courage to devote his work to gaps and leftovers of simulation tools; Gerhard Rieger amazed all of us with his accurate predictions of efforts and time requirements; Walter Tuppa's unsurpassed thirst for action has had an significant impact on VISTA. I am also grateful to all the others not mentioned for their participation in a highly demanding team effort.
I want to thank all system administrators who have sacrificed a considerable part of their time to create a high-fidelity computing environment from often ridiculously inferior operating system implementations.
The VISTA project has been sponsored by the research laboratories of AUSTRIAN INDUSTRIES - AMS at Unterpremstätten, Austria; DIGITAL EQUIPMENT at Hudson, USA; SIEMENS at Munich, FRG; and SONY at Atsugi, Japan, and by the ``Forschungsförderungsfonds für die gewerbliche Wirtschaft'', project 2/285 and project 2/299, as part of ADEQUAT (JESSI project BT1B), ESPRIT project 7236 and project 8002.
I am very grateful to
A. Gabara
~ University of California, Berkeley, California
N. Khalil and H. Soleimani
~ Digital Equipment Corporation, Hudson, Massachusetts
P. Lindorfer
~ National Semiconductors, Santa Clara, California,
E. Masahiko and M. Mukai
~ SONY Corp, Atsugi, Japan
H. Masuda
~ Hitachi Device Development Center, Tokyo, Japan
L. Milanovic, G. Nanz, C. Schiebl, R. Strasser, and M. Thurner
~ Campusbased Engineering Center, Digital Equipment Corporation G.m.b.H,
~ Vienna, Austria
M. Noell
~ Motorola APRDL, Austin, USA
H. Read
~ Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
K. Traar and G. Punz
~ SIEMENS AG, Vienna, Austria
for their good will, their support, and their contributions and criticisms. I specially thank Philipp Lindorfer, who has relied on VISTA in a very early state.
I am grateful to all reviewers who spent their time to provide me with valuable feedback and highly constructive criticisms.
Gerhard Schrom and Thomas Simlinger have accompanied me through the past eleven years of my studies, and through so much more, that any attempt to reflect about it here would not be adequate.
Last but not least, from my deepest heart, I wish to thank my family for love, home, shelter, understanding, patience, and for all the other really important things in life.