A learning laboratory for China's next generation of talent
02/01/2004
With several indigenous companies producing integrated circuits (ICs) to serve the emerging domestic and international consumer-electronics markets, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is fast becoming a semiconductor-manufacturing hub. Much like Taiwan's early experience with its IC industry, China's infrastructure is rapidly evolving to support this fast-growing industry segment. PRC economists, legislators, government officials, and educators are among the many professionals dedicated to creating the optimal environment for manufacturing success. Their commitment reaches beyond the homegrown companies that are sparking China's silicon revolution, extending to the many international semiconductor-related companies that are contributing to China's emergence as an important center of semiconductor manufacturing.
Nowhere is this commitment more evident than within the country's institutes of higher learning. To enhance their efforts, many institutions are collaborating with international corporations on interesting initiatives to create good learning environments for China's new generation of scientists, engineers, and technologists, and several prototypes for such initiatives have emerged. In Shanghai, for instance, Novellus recently teamed with the city's Fudan University (Fig. 1) to establish a research facility on the campus of this leading scientific and microelectronics institution. The Fudan-Novellus Interconnect Research Center —equipped with a complete suite of the company's copper semiconductor-manufacturing tools —will function as a research hub for copper interconnect technology, serving Fudan students, research groups at other universities across the nation, and regional end users of the company's systems.
 Figure 1. Fudan University, which is collaborating with Novellus to establish the Fudan-Novellus Interconnect Research Center. |
Building the facility represented an interesting convergence of US and Chinese government/business/academic practices and protocols. Although there are many excellent universities in China, Fudan was chosen because of its reputation as one of the country's highest-ranking schools for microelectronics. In fact, in Shanghai, it ranks in the top two.
The global interconnect community is small, and it was on the strength of these connections that the center came to be. The idea began as a simple discussion in which Fudan's Professor Bingzong Li spoke of the daunting task of seeding China's booming microelectronics business with a pipeline of well-trained scientists and engineers. The solution, he felt, lay in cultivating native talent that would inspire successive generations of Chinese technologists. As good as they are, however, China's universities often have limited resources — both money and equipment — to train the vast pool of technical talent needed by the microelectronics industry.
Professor Li's enthusiasm for the project stemmed from a strong belief that having a "learning laboratory" on site at Fudan would enrich the learning experience for students and serve as a magnet for would-be undergraduate and graduate students. He also felt that an initial gesture by an equipment supplier might ignite a movement by others to follow suit, especially in the Shanghai area, which is a center of microelectronics manufacturing activity. When Novellus pledged to provide a suite of back-end-of-line (BEOL) process tools to Fudan, Professor Li became the effort's chief champion and was able to match the commitment with a pledge to build a new center to house the tools. He was instrumental in moving this project from a simple idea to reality. The central and local governments provided the remaining support for operational funding and facilitization costs. [Ed. note: The complete suite of copper tools donated by Novellus included a PECVD IMD system, a copper ECD system, a PVD barrier/seed system, and a copper CMP system.]
Under normal circumstances, a foreign company would be required to interface closely with government Ministry officials, along with a long line of officials from Fudan University. Novellus, however, already knew Fudan officials because of contacts within the technical community, so the government played a supporting role, and working out the details was a relatively efficient and seamless exercise. The university has very close ties to the government and takes care to nourish them, since much of its funding comes from that source. So, for the most part, Novellus interfaced with just a few key university officials and they, in turn, managed the government interface. Therefore, the process was relatively straightforward and involved little interaction between the company and Ministry officials.
When the signing ceremony was celebrated in the fall of last year, Shanghai's vice mayor, Zhou Taitongdia, attended and we were delighted to share our collective enthusiasm (see Fig. 2). IC companies hiring graduates of the center can reduce new employee learning curves and accelerate performance and productivity. Novellus, in turn, generates goodwill among students who will become future employees of the Chinese fabs.
For more information, contact Chien Chiang, VP, Research and Development, Novellus Systems Inc, 4000 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95134; ph 408/943-9700, fax 408/570-2635, e-mail [email protected].