A group of 12 UCF students and faculty enriched their understanding of semiconductor manufacturing through the Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advances in Recent Technologies (SMART) workshop that took place in July.

The two-week program, sponsored by Intel and hosted by UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, exposed students and local educators to the field of semiconductor manufacturing through a series of comprehensive and hands-on experiences.

Semiconductor chips manipulate and store electromagnetic energy, making them essential components in electronics such as computers, medical devices and smartphones.

Intel supported the workshops financially and through its Intel Scholars program at UCF, which offers undergraduates interested in semiconductor manufacturing paid internships and opportunities to work in UCF’s cleanrooms.

Intel scholars and faculty guided the participants through four separate modules that included the history of semiconductor electronics, the CHIPS and Science Act, semiconductor materials and a thorough look at the fabrication process.

There is a great need to prepare the emerging national workforce to meet the growing domestic and international demand for semiconductors, says Reza Abdolvand, UCF professor and chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department and SMART workshop coordinator.

“We have identified a gap in training that is not unique to UCF,” he says. “It’s across all educational institutions in the U.S. and that gap is training in semiconductor manufacturing. Institutions, including UCF, are trying to help the industry by creating workforce development programs that focus on this demand.”

The SMART workshop aimed to address that gap in training and is a testament to UCF’s willingness to do so, Abdolvand says.

“We’ve planned and executed the SMART workshop as part of the program this past summer,” he says. “In this workshop, we are compressing a huge amount of information and conveying it to participants in two weeks with the goal of reintroducing this training to a larger audience including undergraduate students, K12 teachers and college instructors.”

The workshop covered many complex topics over a short time. Although it wasn’t a full education, it was crucial for igniting participants’ passion for furthering their semiconductor manufacturing knowledge, Abdolvand says.

“What I would like to see is for them to get excited about the topic,” he says. “It’s not about whether or not they totally understood what we’re talking about, but to get excited and interested.”

Educators at UCF and other higher learning institutions in the U.S. still have work to do in keeping pace with semiconductor manufacturing demand, Abdolvand says.

“[Over] the past several decades, semiconductor manufacturing has moved outside of the U.S.,” he says. “Educational institutions, for the most part, didn’t invest enough [in training] undergraduate students in that domain. The U.S. is pursuing a revival of leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and that has recently come to the forefront of everyone’s mind in regard to technology leadership.”

Will Goodman, a Valencia College electrical and computer engineering technology lab supervisor, says the workshop was easy to understand and translate to others.

“When you break the production of semiconductors down, you realize how approachable some of the steps can be,” he says. “That’s what made me feel like although this is a complex subject it can be very approachable.”

The proliferation of semiconductors in everyday life is what prompted Eric Apfel, a Wekiva High School physics teacher, to attend SMART.

“The technology is growing and growing on a scale I couldn’t have imagined 20-30 years ago,” he says. “The devices that students carry around use semiconductors and it’s important to keep making them more efficient, better and smaller so they can continue introducing the technology to the next generation.”

Apfel says he’ll implement both the knowledge and the instruction methods that he learned at the workshop to his students.

“I plan to use everything in this workshop to give students an idea of something they may be interested in but may not even know about yet,” he says.

Melyia Ingram and Labiba Ibrahim, both Intel scholars, say it was gratifying to teach others about semiconductors and enrich their own knowledge, too.

“It’s mainly about bringing people together about semiconductors,” Ingram says. “We learned about semiconductors and the nitty gritty of the process. This was a chance to get exposed to that and to teach others.”

“SMART 2024 is a workshop that allows you to learn more about chip manufacturing and have an opportunity to gain that experience at an undergrad level,” Ibrahim says. “I met all kinds of people, and they all had different perspectives. They asked us a lot of different questions and it helped reshape my perspectives, too.”

Namisha Jagmohan ’24, a student in the ECE department and a cleanroom co-op, says the workshop was a great way to make the complex topic of semiconductor manufacturing much more accessible.

“The world of semiconductor manufacturing is very daunting on the outside,” she says. “The more that you steep in it, the more you learn you have to keep asking questions and you’ll eventually catch on to how everything works. We had the opportunity to demonstrate the whole manufacturing process from start to finish.”

The student participants also had a fulfilling experience, with their interest in semiconductors piqued.

“Once I got to UCF, … I found a lot of interest in semiconductors, as it’s an interconnect in fields such as physics, materials sciences and more,” says Christian Turner, an electrical engineering student at UCF. “Getting to go into the labs and feel like a researcher was different from going to class and just listening to a lecture.”

The interactive portions of the SMART workshop provided UCF electrical engineering student Thomas Parker with a new perspective and real-world experience with semiconductor manufacturing, he says.

“The part I found most engaging was how hands-on the experience was,” Parker says. “I wasn’t all that aware of what semiconductor manufacturing involved. It was great being in those cleanrooms and seeing how it was with building and creating these parts.”

Overall, the SMART workshop accomplished its goal in empowering and inspiring students and faculty to pursue semiconductor manufacturing as part of their STEM education and curriculum, Abdolvand says.

“In my interactions with the students,” he says, “if I’ve managed to spark their curiosity and make them aware that this field exists [and is] something they can explore further, then that’s a significant victory in my book.”

For more information on SMART 2024, please visit the event’s page. Interested electrical and computer engineering students can find available scholarships on the ECE page.