New Laboratory Facility Expands Opportunities for Students

The Integrated Circuit Fabrication Laboratory was opened last semester by the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Institute for Plasma Research.

This laboratory will be used for both research and education. Research activities in the laboratory include the fabrication of special microelectronic devices and circuits by focused ion beam implantation, and the preparation of substrates for other ion beam experiments.

The lab is also being used for a new, undergraduate senior-level course in microchip fabrication. The goal of the course is to “provide students with an understanding of how a silicon wafer is turned into an operating chip.” This course reviews transistor operation and the IC fabrication steps, stressing how processing parameters affect transistor performance. Students carry out the fabrication steps needed to produce transistors, and test the transistors and simple circuits that have been fabricated.

For more information about the Integrated Circuit Fabrication Laboratory, contact Prof. John Melngailis, at (301)405-4916, or melng@glue.umd.edu