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| Practice-Oriented Masters Overview
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| Very few programs exist today in the U.S. and around the world to produce any significant number of microelectronics packaging engineers. Individuals who arrive at careers in microelectronics packaging do so with a single discipline background in science or engineering and are trained by industry on the job. The dynamic and global nature of the industry, however, requires an entirely different approach. As a result of this need, the Microsystems Packaging Research Center (PRC) faculty together with the Center's industry members, have developed the first entrepreneurial and practice-oriented certificate program in microelectronics systems packaging. The goal of this program is to provide students with the following knowledge and skills.
The certificate designates the technical focus while degrees are granted by participating units (Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering). The Practice-Oriented Masters (POM) program is a response to industry's need for a strong professional Master's degree program for students planning to go immediately into industry rather than seeking a Ph.D. Therefore, the target population for the program is recent BS recipients in science and engineering, as well as junior engineers in the packaging industry. In 12 to 15 months, students gain an MS degree in engineering with a certificate in microelectronics packaging at a top- 10 ranked school, do a minor in Management and intern with a potential future employer. The POM program is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Engineering Education and Centers Office, through Georgia Tech's Packaging Research Center. The PRC provides the technical focus for the packaging certificate and PRC member companies provide internship sites. The packaging certificate demonstrates a critical level of packaging expertise to employers. For More Information back Looking for information not found on this web site? Please contact: Prof. Rao Tummala
To complete the POM
program, students take three major components. All the degrees are granted
through participating academic units such as ECE, ME or MSE.
The engineering component stresses systems-level understanding and hands-on laboratory experience, coupled with fundamental scientific knowledge in order to address manufacturing and short-term development issues in industry. The management
component includes business basics that a practicing engineer
should know, such as Finance, Organizational Management, Strategy, Marketing
and Operations. These basics are organized as short modules to provide
the engineering student with basic, generalized management skills.
Engineering Component back Students are required to take twelve semester hours (four three-credit courses) of approved packaging courses as summarized in the following table.
Two out of the four courses are core courses and restricted to a system-level course (ECE 6776) and either of the two hands-on courses offered every year. The other two courses are electives and chosen among a list of approved elective courses with significant microelectronic packaging content (see the list below). The contents of the packaging courses are updated regularly to integrate breakthroughs, advances, developments, and research results into the curriculum. As a result of these, the POM certificate demonstrates a critical level of packaging expertise to employers.
A key aspect of this program is to provide students with hands-on courses that simulate the industry experience from electrical and mechanical design of IC, packaging and systems, chemical fabrication of materials to build systems and electrical testing of the final product. The PRC calls it Design, Build- and Operate (DBO). These courses are designed and developed after the two recently developed and offered hands-on instructional laboratories, substrate lab and module lab, that expose students to basic IC and systems packaging concepts and technologies. These two courses focus on: (1) multilevel thin film substrate fabrication and (2) module assembly, reliability, thermal management, and electrical test. Each course includes the necessary theoretical lectures but the primary focus is on laboratory exercises that permit students to design, build, assemble and test microelectronic system packages. The substrate fabrication course includes topics such as interconnect design, dielectric deposition, via formation, metallization, and substrate testing. The module assembly course covers flip chip assembly, functional test, reliability modeling, and thermal management and can be taken as one of the elective courses. List of possible elective courses with microelectronics packaging content is provided below. Packaging Elective Courses:
The following Management electives are offered during the spring semester:
Please note: courses may be subject to change without notice. Internship Component back The internship component plays an important role in preparing the students for the global electronic packaging industry. During the internship, POM students learn about electronic packaging manufacturing and cost analysis. They also receive training in solving specialized packaging problems by working on a specific packaging project at an industry site and by preparing a project report for presentation when they return. At present, the PRC has 43 industry members (4 international) and 57 industrial affiliates. These industrial relationships provide the foundation for identifying the domestic and international internship sites for the POM students. The international internship period is longer than the domestic and can last up to 6 months. Part of this time is spent on improving language skills and getting familiar with the culture. |
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