As part of our international partnerships, RIT is working to improve our competitiveness in the design, development, and manufacturing of computer chips.
Micron, Tokyo Electron, and the National Science Foundation will announce the Japan-U.S. University Partnership for Future Workforce Advancement and Semiconductor Research and Development (UPWARDS) at the 2023 G7 Summit in Japan. We announced a partnership.
RIT is one of six participating U.S. universities.
RIT established the nation’s first microelectronic engineering degree program, with more than 1,500 graduates currently working in the semiconductor field. This program combines the theoretical knowledge and practical training necessary to design and build semiconductor chips.
Through the UPWARDS partnership, RIT microelectronics faculty have expanded curriculum development and initiated research collaborations and faculty-student exchanges, with the recent participation of 24 students and faculty from Nagoya University and Kyushu University.
The group visited RIT this summer to participate in two weeks of activities coordinated by RIT Global and Kate Gleason Institute of Technology faculty.
Students manufactured solar cells in RIT’s Semiconductor Nanofabrication Lab and learned about clean room processes. They also attended research seminars hosted by faculty and toured RIT’s AMPrint Center and MAGIC Spell Studios.
In addition to technical sessions, students visited local company Linton Crystal Technologies to learn how silicon, the basic material in semiconductors, is grown, processed, and prepared for today’s electronic devices and systems. I learned.
They also toured GlobalFoundries, an international semiconductor manufacturing laboratory located in Albany, New York.
“It was good to hear about how silicon ingots are manufactured and how they are used in clean rooms,” said Zhang Lin, a graduate student at Kyushu University’s School of Electrical Engineering, Science and Information Technology.
Carl Hirschman, professor in the Department of Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering, expects a group of RIT students to travel to Japan next year.
“The UPWARDS program provides great opportunities for faculty and students both here and in Japan. We are excited to establish research collaborations with our new university partners,” said Hirschman.
The global need for more computer chips and a larger semiconductor workforce has become most evident during the pandemic, with supply chain disruptions. That challenge still remains.
The United States invested in education and manufacturing through CHIPS and the Science Act. RIT is currently training the next generation of semiconductor workforce through global connections such as UPWARDS.
