A Semiconductor Technology Course

A one-year semiconductor technology course for undergraduate senior electrical engineering students is described. The course consists of one semester of lecture followed by one semester of laboratory. The material covered in the lecture is demonstrated to the students by field trips to local industry and in their laboratory. Highly sophisticated technology such as ion-implantation is demonstrated in field trips and technology such as thermal diffusion is encountered by the student in his laboratory course. "Thus, whenever possible, the student can relate his lecture material to observation. The laboratory consists of a complete processing operation where the student starts with a crystal boule and fabricates a packaged device whose terminal characteristics are measured. He or she thus obtains some feeling for the effects of processing on terminal characteristics. Projects are used in conjunction with the laboratory to improve some of the process steps and to give the student some experience in tackling nonstructured problems which are more closely related to professional activities after graduation.