RIT expands its workforce initiatives for the semiconductor industry

Rochester Institute of Technology will take the lead on a new program that allows community college students to join the growing semiconductor industry. The intent is to build a pipeline of skilled employees for a strategic U.S. manufacturing industry.

Community college students from diverse backgrounds will earn associate degrees in engineering science and then transfer into RIT’s microelectronic engineering program to attain a Bachelor of Science degree through comprehensive hands-on training on the development of next-generation semiconductor technologies.

RIT received nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation to establish Beginnings: Empowering Minds through Experiential Learning, Research, and Career Growth Opportunities in Emerging Microelectronics (EMERGE-MICRO). The program will prepare community college students to advance new materials, lead cleanroom operations, and coordinate simulation and testing processes, all essential to building computer chips for today’s electronic devices, systems, and industries.

Key partners are Monroe Community College and Finger Lakes Community College, both of which have strong programming in engineering, science, and physics. Corporate partners include Micron Corp. and GlobalFoundries, international manufacturers of computer chips.

‌

RIT

Parsian Mohseni, associate professor in RIT’s Department of Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering, will lead the new NSF grant to expand workforce initiatives in computer chip design, development, and fabrication.

“The workforce needs of the microelectronic industry by far exceeds the supply of skilled workers that we have today,” said Parsian Mohseni, associate professor of electrical and microelectronic engineering at RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering. “This is an all-hands-on-deck scenario where we need to create pathways for new talent into the field to support domestic growth in semiconductor manufacturing.”

The EMERGE-MICRO program is a pilot program or model that can be scaled nationwide to continue feeding the manufacturing industry with its needed workers.

“RIT has a long-standing history of excellence in microelectronic engineering,” Mohseni said. “We are the oldest and first university in the country to start a dedicated program in microelectronic engineering that involves not just extensive coursework but experiential learning through laboratory courses and, more importantly, research and co-op placements. Our graduates have a 100 percent work placement rate by the time they have finished their B.S. degrees.”

Extending this advantage to community college students will involve access to RIT’s Semiconductor Nanofabrication Laboratory to receive hands-on training in the extensive processes required to build today’s computer chips, specifically complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices, a key expertise of the microelectronic engineering faculty-researchers.

Community colleges will be instrumental in the recruiting process and corporate partners will help with experiential learning efforts by guiding undergraduate research directions and providing co-op work placement opportunities. They also will participate on a new advisory board for the EMERGE-MICRO project team.

The RIT award is one of several announced recently by the NSF’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships for its Experiential Learning for Emerging and Novel Technologies to expand workforce opportunities in high-tech areas expected to have significant economic impact in the U.S.