Curriculum Innovations in Microelectronic Engineering

IEEE Transactions on Education, 1993

In this paper we present a summary of the activities undertaken in Canada under the sponsorship of the Canadian Microelectronics Corporation to provide more tools for teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in microelectronics. A set of modules has been developed by researchers in the field, with the aim of wide distribution among universities of powerful educational aids to serve industry in the development of new techniques and to serve educators and researchers in the dissemination of VLSI design in the engineering and computer science communities. This paper presents a new model of cooperation to provide an integrated platform for microelectronics education.

IEEE Transactions on Education, 2005

We present improvements made to a CMOS (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) fabrication laboratory course to increase student learning and student impact (enrollment). The three main improvements to the course discussed include: 1) use of a 2-mask MOS process that significantly reduced the time it previously took students to design, fabricate, and verify the electrical properties of a MOSFET process; 2) students' use of a semi-custom IC design that significantly reduced the average design and processing time of previous years; and, 3) development and implementation of a system of course prerequisites, which allowed a larger number of students to enroll in the course.

2013 12th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), 2013

Macedonia-and Switzerland in an active joint work. The subsequent application of the project outcomes in the three partner universities will result in a inter-university european network for modern engineer's education and training in micronanoelectronics, with the coordination and active support of the

Journal of Engineering Education, 1998

As the development of micromechanical devices and systems advances, diversity among processes is increasing. To transfer these technologies from university laboratories to the industrial sector requires graduates with a knowledge of the advantages and limitations of the processes and the ability to synthesize system concepts that can be more easily manufactured. Six introductory courses were developed based on transferring micromanufacturing research results into the classroom, and tutorials in several key areas were developed for access via the World Wide Web and CD-ROM. The courses were intended to provide an overview to baccalaureate graduates entering industry so they can determine if micromechanical technologies might be applicable in their respective companies. For students continuing with graduate studies, the courses were intended to provide a sufficient understanding in microtechnologies so they could adapt and integrate them into their research. Assessment of the courses was accomplished partly by standard student assessment instruments, but mostly by written feedback from students on how well the courses helped prepare them for graduate research and employment in a field utilizing micromanufacturing.

2003 Annual Conference Proceedings

Historically, chemical engineering has been focused on petrochemical and bulk chemical production. However, over the last 10-15 years, more chemical engineers and chemical engineering opportunities for new graduates have moved into the microelectronics industry. This is especially true in Oregon and at Oregon State University (OSU), where approximately 60% of the B.S. and M.S. graduates in the last five years have been employed in some sectors of the microelectronics and related industries. A number of schools have started to incorporate microelectronic processing into their curriculum. For the most part, this material tends to be presented in specialized, elective courses. However, when presented in the context of core chemical engineering courses, these unit operations can provide students with depth as well as breadth knowledge. The chemical engineering department at OSU is committed to developing strength in microelectronics processing within the context of the fundamental skills of the discipline. To this end, we are developing curricular and experimental modules from selected unit operations common in the microelectronics industry, and are integrating these into the classroom and the laboratory. Unit operations include: plasma etching, spin coating, chemical vapor deposition, electrodeposition and chemical mechanical planarization. The curricular modules are intended to reinforce core ChE fundamentals with examples from microelectronics processing. The lab modules provide students with hands-on learning in this area as well as more open-ended problem solving experiences. The incorporation of these microelectronics unit operations into core engineering science classes, into senior lab and into process design will be presented.

2016

This paper discusses the benefits of using largescale projects, involving many groups of students with different backgrounds, in the education of undergraduate microelectronics engineering students. The benefits of involving students in large, industry-like projects are first briefly reviewed. The organisation of undergraduate programmes is presented, and it is described how students can be involved in such large projects, while maintaining compatibility with undergraduate programmes. The generic discussion is illustrated with an example of the University of Southampton Small Satellite (UoS 3) project, which has been running for two academic years and involved a number of students to date. It is discussed how the work on a project can be split between different student groups so that they can be assessed on it. Definition of interfaces between different groups, as well as how they are managed in the UoS 3 project, are described. The difficulties that large, student-run projects are likely to face are mentioned and recommendations about the structuring of degree programmes to amend them to large projects, are made. Lastly, conclusions about the applicability and benefits of small satellite projects to undergraduate education in electronics are drawn.

Proceedings of the …, 2008

Abstract: Rapid changes in integrated circuits (IC) technology and constantly shrinking process geometries demand a new curriculum that meets the contemporary requirements for IC design. This is especially important for 90nm and below technologies and the use of ...

IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 1998

Conventional approaches to teaching electronics and instrumentation emphasize microelectronics. This paper describes an approach that emphasizes macroelectronics instead. The objectives of the electronics course now focus on giving students the tools they need to create useful electronic instruments composed of functional subsystems. To achieve this goal, a design project is given at the beginning of the course. The design projects are chosen to provide motivation and affirmation of course content. We have used a power supply and a semiconductor curve tracer as example design projects in offerings at our respective universities. The experience has been positive as measured by student responses and their ability to complete useful instruments. We have also used a model corporate structure as a way to organize student efforts and to handle the support needed to ensure success. All students serve a technical role as design engineers. Depending on class size and the size of model companies desired, students vie for executive, marketing, financial, procurement, manufacturing, and technical-documentation positions.

In the past decades, VLSI industries constantly shrank the size of transistors, so that more and more transistors can be built into the same chip area to make VLSI more and more powerful in its functions. As the typical feature size of CMOS VLSI is shrunk into deep submicron domain, nanotechnology is the next step in order to maintain Moore's law for several more decades. Nanotechnology not only further improves the resolution in traditional photolithography process, but also introduces many brand-new fabrication strategies, such as bottom-up molecular self-assembly. Nanotechnology is also enabling many novel devices and circuit architectures which are totally different from current microelectronics circuits, such as quantum computing, nanowire crossbar circuits, spin electronics, etc. Nanotechnology is bringing another technology revolution to traditional CMOS VLSI technology. In order to train students to meet the quickly-increasing industry demand for nextgeneration nanoelectronics engineers, we are making efforts to introduce nanotechnology into our VLSI curricula. We have developed a series of VLSI curricula which include CPE/EE 448D -Introduction to VLSI, EE 548 -Low Power VLSI Circuit Design, EE 458 -Analog VLSI Circuit Design, EE 549 -VLSI Testing, etc. Furthermore, we developed a series of micro and nanotechnology related courses, such as EE 451 -Nanotechnology, EE 448 -Microelectronic Fabrication, EE 446 -MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems). We introduce nanotechnology into our VLSI curricula, and teach the students about various devices, fabrication processes, circuit architectures, design and simulation skills for future nanotechnology-based nanoelectronic circuits. Some examples are nanowire crossbar circuit architecture, carbon-nanotube based nanotransistor, single-electron transistor, spintronics, quantum computing, bioelectronic circuits, etc. Students show intense interest in these exciting topics. Some students also choose nanoelectronics as the topic for their master project/thesis, and perform successful research in the field. The program has attracted many graduate students into the field of nanoelectronics.