Increased semiconductor manufacturing in the United States will increase the demand for skilled workers over the next decade. The University of Illinois at Chicago will help meet that demand by joining with other universities, community colleges and electronics companies in a statewide effort to train students to leap into a multi-trillion dollar industry. .
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced the launch of the Illinois Semiconductor Workforce Network in September. The network, led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was selected to receive funding from the National Semiconductor Technology Center under the Workforce Partner Alliance Program enabled by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. It is one of two groups.
The UIC College of Engineering will play a key role in training students from UIC and Chicago-area community colleges in nanotechnology core facilities and co-designing new undergraduate courses and curricula with industry partners. The UIC faculty members for this award are Igor Paprotny, Debjit Pal, Aritollah Banerjee, Junxia Lucy See, and Carmen Lilly.
“Our students’ learning curve begins here at UIC and at our partner institutions, so by the time they arrive in industry, they are nearly ready to be successful from day one,” said Dr. said Pal, one of the five faculty members. Graduated from the Faculty of Engineering and is involved in networks. “We will further develop what we already have and take it to the next level, making a significant contribution to the development of domestic semiconductor talent.”
The new program will expand on current training and research activities in the Nanotechnology Core Facility’s state-of-the-art clean room, a 3,000-square-foot controlled environment capable of manufacturing and characterizing electronic chips and devices. Now, UIC engineering students in the Microdevices and Micromachining Technology course are getting hands-on experience with the same advanced equipment used by leading technology companies.
Through the Illinois Semiconductor Workforce Network, that experience is extended to students at local schools such as City Colleges of Chicago and Chicago State University through paid internships. Cleanroom experiments will also be integrated into additional electrical and computer engineering courses at UIC, and the facility will have new equipment and features aligned with cutting-edge industry practices.
“We want to expose our students to semiconductor manufacturing early on and get them excited about these cutting-edge technologies and tools,” said Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of faculty research at the Nanotechnology Core Facility. said one Paprotony. . “In the lab, you can actually see and touch things, which is very exciting.”
The College of Engineering also plans to collaborate with industry partners such as GlobalFoundries, Synopsys, and AMD to create new courses and training programs. Banerjee, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, said these co-design curricula will help students graduate with the skills they need to immediately land a job at a semiconductor company.
“We need to get feedback from our industry partners, revise our curriculum, and make sure we are building new courses that are fully aligned with what the industry needs as it looks to the future,” Banerjee said. said. “So when students finish their training and graduate, we have a perfect match. They are ready to contribute to those activities, and industry is ready to hire them.”
Throughout the new program, there will be a focus on broader participation in the semiconductor industry. Currently, Black and Latinx workers make up less than 13% of the semiconductor workforce. Less than a quarter of the industry’s employees are women.
“The university’s mission is to provide Illinois students and residents with broad access to the highest levels of educational and research excellence,” said Machine, who oversees the diversity, equity, and inclusion program at the center. said Lilly, an associate professor of industrial engineering. . “This grant aligns with our university’s mission and responds to the national security and economic needs of training America’s workforce in the semiconductor industry. Outreach programs and an inclusive learning environment , will help meet these national needs by providing students with access to educational opportunities and preparing them for the workforce.”
