We deal with boundary layers and quasi-neutral limits in the drift-diffusion equations. We first show that this limit is unique and determined by a system of two decoupled equations with given initial and boundary conditions. Then we establish the boundary layer equations and prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions with exponential decay. This yields a globally strong convergence (with respect to the domain) of the sequence of solutions and an optimal convergence rate $O(\varepsilon^\frac{1}{2})$ to the quasi-neutral limit in L 2.