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Developing Microelectronics and VLSI Field Education for the Potential Workforce

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Curricular Innovations for Future-Ready Engineering Talents

Tagged Division

Electrical and Computer Engineering Division (ECE)

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/47170

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Paper Authors

biography

Jabeom Koo The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

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Dr. Koo received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, in March 2016. He then joined the Analog I/O design team at Intel Corporation in Hillsboro, OR for i5/i7 CPU design. After the first tape-in with CMOS 10nm technology, he moved to the RF technology team in Advanced Design group. He worked as a RF/Analog Circuit Design Engineer and participated in 140GHz Transceiver/Receiver system design for server chips communication. He also had additional responsibilities as a lab manager controlling all measurements for Intel 22nm FinFet technology development. He joined Cooper Union as Assistant Professor at 2020 Fall, and teaches Microelectronics/VLSI related courses. His current research interests are in the area of RF IC design for wireless applications.

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Abstract

The field of microelectronics lies at the heart of countless technological advancements and serves as catalyst for innovation across various industries. Recognizing its critical importance, the United States Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which aims to bolster the nation’s position in microelectronics research, development, and manufacturing. In response to this transformative legislation, this paper is to describe the recent development in Electrical Engineering department at Cooper Union for innovating curriculum in microelectronics education. 
The primary objective of this development is to entice students into microelectronics and VLSI field and build up a cutting-edge, industry relevant curriculum by utilizing design kits provided by semiconductor manufacturing company. In addition, industry standard design software tools are provided. This paper describes detail about why it is important to have such environment in the microelectronics education. Detail contents about each class year curriculum are included and shows how they are related each other. The curriculum regarding microelectronics and VLSI consists of circuit analysis and microelectronics 1 for sophomore, microelectronics 2 and Analog VLSI for Junior, and Digital VLSI for Senior. One of uniqueness in curriculum is Junior project and Senior project. Every year from freshmen to senior, 2 credits project class should be completed, which are based on hands-on experiments. Junior project class has one session dedicated to implementing one of circuits on bread boards such as crystal oscillator and active mixer. Students can find any issues or challenges through experiments, which are not found through theory based class. Although students have learned those issues through previous courses, they can recognize clearly by experiments. This hands-on experiments must lead to strong motivation to in-depth research and necessity of on-chip implementation. Senior project, therefore, supports teams for IC design by tape-out process so that senior students can design their own chips.

Koo, J. (2024, June), Developing Microelectronics and VLSI Field Education for the Potential Workforce Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47170

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