Collaborative Research: Development of a Nanofabrication Lab Manual Featuring a Suite of Low-Cost Experiments to Enable Hands-On Training at Community and Technical Colleges

Semiconductors in the form of integrated circuits (ICs), or chips, are an integral part of our technology-driven world. The need for chips has risen sharply while the supply has fallen short of the demand worldwide. Before the end of the last century the United States (US) led the world in chipmaking. However, the US now provides less than 10% of the world need, and the leadership of chip supply is dominated by other countries. Semiconductor products are critical to our economic and national security and rank the fifth largest US export sector providing approximately 250,000 jobs in the United States. This project will explore an innovative way to increase the chipmaking workforce numbers required to meet this national need by eliminating the expensive and complex infrastructure (e.g., cleanrooms, fabrication equipment) traditionally required to train and educate individuals in this area. This project will develop a lab manual featuring low-cost experiments that closely represent the methods used in the chipmaking industry. The manual will feature experiments for students to demonstrate their learning in a hands-on fashion. The lessons in the manual will specifically be designed to be transferrable to any community college (CC) seeking to offer degree tracks in micro and nanotechnology (i.e., chipmaking) to dynamically meet the local industry demand. Instructor guides will include student assessment rubrics to measure learning outcomes. After development, partnering CC’s will review the manual and evaluate the experiments. The manual will be further optimized and evaluated before widespread dissemination through national conferences and professional development activities. This manual will be used as both an outreach tool and a training resource to help cultivate and develop the workforce required to fill the US chipmaking sector. This project, in response to the Enhancing Engineering Technology and Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Technician Education Dear Colleague Letter (22-120), is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the Nation's economy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.