Many pundits have decried the inadequacies of technical
and scientific education in U.S. schools. Yet kids today take to the
latest technological gadgets like hummingbirds to sweet nectar, even
if most are clueless about the inner building blocks of their prized
gizmos. On a parallel track, semiconductor industry newbies must digest
a barrage of foils or slides detailing in a very two-dimensional, individualized
way the three-dimensional, team-oriented process of chipmaking. Thanks
to a team of industrial educators at AMD and the Maricopa Advanced Technology
Education Center (MATEC) in Tempe, AZ, a new tool for teaching transistor
manufacturing has made the learning curve a little less steep.
Back in 1998, AMD's Julian Serda and Cynthia Wyman explored different
approaches to teaching how chips are made. They tried dolls' paper dresses,
Post-its, and Play-Doh, but none of them worked well, says Serda. Then
inspiration struck. While playing with her kids at home, Wyman hit on
the idea of using Lego building blocks to construct a transistor model.
Serda then designed photomask drafts, and a run card evolved from there.
He acknowledges that some processes, such as ions penetrating silicon
during implantation, were difficult to demonstrate with the blocks and
had to be explained more traditionally.
Nonetheless, they locked in the format, improved and simplified it
where needed, and started implementing what Serda calls "the hands-on
approach to building transistors" for their courses at AMD Austin in
January 1999. Since then, he says, it has been used in 41 classes with
nearly 600 participants, both internally and at training workshops for
high-school teachers and wafer fab technician instructors.
AMD shares the kit's copyright with MATEC, which developed the participant
workbook in conjunction with Serda. While AMD maintains the actual rights
to the concept, MATEC handles distribution and marketing. It has been
offered for about a year to high schools, community colleges, universities,
and industry in MATEC's catalog of semiconductor-oriented educational
and training products, according to the center's executive director,
Michael Lesiecki.
When conducting his courses for fab techs and other employees, Serda
prefers that groups of four build the transistor model, with each team
member assigned to one of the particular process modules of photolithography,
etch, diffusion, and films and implant. "The participants learn by watching
other people on the team do their parts in the process."
Lesiecki believes the assembly kit has two advantages as a teaching
tool. "It addresses different learning styles... it's the same [instructional]
materials shown in a different way. And it reinforces the actual operational
aspects of a fab where there are process areas, pass-down of work, things
like that."
The teamwork benefits became all too apparent when I built the model.
Although the accompanying workbook features clear explanatory text and
excellent illustrations, I made a couple of critical "processing errors"
over the course of the 41-step simulation that would not have gone undetected
had I been working with others. A comment of Serda's foretold my screw-ups.
"Experience doesn't always prove to be a positive factor. Some people
think they know everything and skip some steps."
Assembling the kit reminded me of several key truths about chipmaking.
The process itself is almost as important as the final product, each
step critical and fascinating in its own way. The process is more sacrificial
than constructive: only 37 of the 118 blocks (including the substrate
base) remained in the finished model, with all the green resist and
red silicon-nitride blocks among the 81 leftover pieces. In some ways
(minus the amount of chemicals used, another core truth), it would be
like building a house in which certain rooms or floors had to be knocked
down or ripped out, rebuilt, then demolished again, then rebuilt again,
to finally finish the construction.
EDITOR'S
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