From classrooms to the real engineering world: the training program in the Microelectronics Research Center at Georgia Tech

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a training program that helps students transfer their classroom knowledge to hands-on equipment-operating and device-processing skills in the Microelectronics Research Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. The program is designed to bring down the barrier between engineering students and well-equipped research facilities, while decreasing the mistakes caused by new users. Since the program started three years ago, more than 500 on-site classes (a one-time class with a maximum of eight attendees per class) have been offered, and more than 3000 attendees have gone through the program. The program has had a strong impact on clean-room operation and the processing capability in the center. More importantly, students are prepared more thoroughly for the real engineering world.