Universities offer hands-on training

04/01/1997

Universities offer hands-on training

Lorraine Savage, Associate Editor

A number of institutes of higher learning provide undergraduates hands-on training in the microelectronics processing field. Some universities offer microelectronics as an elective for electrical engineering majors, while other schools have or are implementing full-fledged microelectronics programs. Many of the schools receive donations of equipment and money from big corporations that go on to hire a large number of the school`s graduates.

One of these schools is the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, NY, which began offering a full Bachelor of Science in Microelectronics Engineering in 1982. Lynn Fuller, Motorola professor and head of microelectronics engineering at the school, explained, "We started a whole new department separate from electrical engineering (EE) and built a $15 million building." The microelectronics degree offers a co-op program beginning in the second year of study. Students alternate six months of school with six months of work in the semiconductor industry. In the co-op program, students take five years to complete the degree instead of the traditional four, but are given the opportunity to work at such companies as Motorola, Intel, National Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, IBM, Digital Equipment Corp., and AMD.

Fuller noted, "RIT has the world`s largest semiconductor fab at a university. It`s a complete equipment set. We run full CMOS processes and make integrated circuits of all types. We`re especially strong in lithography. Freshmen start in the labs doing projects." These special projects challenge students to make a chip, which might be an EE problem chip or a charged couple device chip, from beginning to end (Fig. 1). "Some students do micromachines and sensors, memory chips, all kinds of CMOS, such as n-well and p-well," Fuller said. "We have over 500 graduates; there are about 250 [students] in the program, so there are hundreds of projects every year that go on."

Most students majoring in EE or materials science at other universities are lucky to be exposed to one or two microelectronics courses during their education. RIT prepares students more specifically. "From my own experience with industry that comes here to recruit, we`re on the top school list for Motorola, Intel, and TI. Fuller said that in a Semiconductor Research Corp. survey, RIT was ranked the best school in preparing students for the semiconductor industry.

RIT, like many schools, receives help from major industry players. "Motorola offers us cash, equipment, and co-op jobs for our students," he said. "And the company tries to hire all our graduates, but there`s competition from Intel, TI, Samsung, National, Analog, Twinstar, and Hitachi."

Openly acknowledging RIT`s program as a model, Boise State University (BSU) in Idaho began implementing an elaborate microelectronics program last fall. "We`ve put together a curriculum which is similar to Rochester`s undergraduate curriculum," said Stephen Parke, who is assistant professor and director of the microelectronics program at Boise State. "We`ve been working closely with Micron Technology Inc., Boise, to develop an undergraduate engineering program in microelectronics that heavily emphasizes processing and device modeling and characterization."

Figure 1. The Rochester Institute of Technology offers students hands-on experience with semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

The BSU program has a strong processing-based set of electives that includes Introduction to Microelectronics, which offers a broad overview in plasma etching, CVD, CMP, and various process modules; Semiconductor Material Science; Introduction to IC Processing; and Device Characterization Lab, which offers instruction in Micron`s characterization lab. "Students get to go to the lab one evening per week for three hours to do wafer probing with the equipment. Micron has been very generous to let us use their lab," said Parke. Students do IV and CV measurements on MOS sets and capacitors, resistor structures, and bipolar transistors.

As part of its increased offerings, BSU is building a small Class 1000 cleanroom where students will do photolithography and wet etching. Micron, American Micro Systems, SCP Global Technologies (formerly Santa Clara Plastics), and NEC Corp. have donated equipment, such as a stepper, photoresist wafer track, metrology equipment, and wet sink. "We can do photolithography with a Nikon i-line stepper, and use an SVG wafer track for coat and develop, all for 150 mm," said Parke. He noted that many companies are divesting themselves of 150 mm and going to 200 mm, so it`s an opportune time for universities to acquire 150-mm wafer processing equipment. The school is also breaking ground this fall on a new $6 million engineering building, to open in 1999, that will have a 5000-ft2 cleanroom.

In a unique example of cooperation, Micron Technology donated a stepper to BSU. Karen Vauk, training manager at Micron explained, "The stepper was more sophisticated than BSU needed and could afford to maintain, but the Rochester Institute could. So we donated that stepper to RIT, RIT then donated the stepper they had to BSU. So everyone`s needs were met, and Micron was able to contribute to programs at two schools."

BSU`s proximity to the growing semiconductor industry in Oregon has been a blessing. "We`ve had a lot of interest expressed from the Portland area," said Parke. "We have a large percentage of nontraditional students coming out of technician jobs and trying to finish their Bachelor`s degree. We`re supplying some of our lecture courses on video and teaching courses directly in plants." Parke says that he has about 20 off-campus students.

Another school expanding its curriculum is San Jose State University (SJSU) in California, which is developing a process engineering program to educate students for entry into the various industries that use thin-film fabrication techniques, such as semiconductor manufacturing, information storage, and new industries, like micromachining. SJSU hopes to begin recruiting students for this program in fall 1998. Under the program, students will have the opportunity to specialize; the first specialization that may be available is semiconductor processing, as the school already offers several courses in this area.

In SJSU`s current semiconductor processing elective course, students spend the whole semester in teams doing a five-mask metal gate PMOS process. "They start with a bare wafer and end with working transistors," said Emily Allen, materials engineering assistant professor. Half the students at any one time process wafers by following a given recipe, while the other half perform process development experiments, such as characterizing an oxidation tube. Students are rotated through different tasks and get a taste of how real engineers function in a company. "The first year we offered this we had 12 students; we`re up to 48 now." Like Boise, SJSU is attracting industry workers. "We`re getting calls from people who aren`t enrolled students who want to come and take the course," said Allen.

A school with a solid curriculum in microelectronics is the University of Illinois at Chicago, which offers several undergraduate courses in microelectronics primarily for EE and computer engineering majors. A lab course in microfabrication includes work in a research cleanroom facility in the department. "We have everything you`d expect in a fab except an implanter," said David Naylor, associate professor and director of microfabrication applications. "Students get trained in the various steps involved in microfabrication from mask design, maskmaking, photolithography, etching, deposition, characterization, diffusion, and oxidation." Students are charged with making either a pressure sensor or a bio sensor, which they fabricate in the classroom and then test. The university has about 20-30 graduate students and 15 undergraduates in the microfabrication course. The university also offers courses in electronic circuits, electronic devices, and integrated circuit engineering that include typical bipolar and CMOS fabrication.

A significant part of the electrical/computer engineering curriculum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is based on solid-state electronics or microelectronics (Fig. 2). The school offers a lab course called Theory and Fabrication of IC Devices. Steve Kang, electrical and computer engineering department head, said, "We recently received an equipment donation from Intel to upgrade our lab." Instead of using its 50-mm wafer fab line, the school is now upgrading to 100-mm wafers. "This is still below the industry standard, but a university cannot afford to have a 200-mm facility," said Kang. Intel donated equipment from its 100-mm line, and other industry players have donated cash for faculty to buy up-to-date research equipment, and donated computers for instructional use.

The Urbana-Champaign school offers an extensive program in gallium arsenide. "That`s the traditional strength of our campus," noted Kang. Courses are offered in microwave devices and circuits, optoelectronic integrated circuits, and VLSI design. "Our program is very hands on," said Kang. "Students make a very simple IC, then they fabricate a chip, do measurements, characterize transistors, and compare with circuits simulation."

Other colleges and universities offer hands-on experience in microelectronics. At Rutgers in New Brunswick, NJ, for example, EE majors may take a microelectronics elective, which offers classroom, simulation, and cleanroom components. The Georgia Institute of Technology offers EE majors five courses in the specialization of microelectronics.

Figure 2. Students in the Integrated Circuits Fabrication Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign measure silicon dioxide film thickness using an ellipsometer.