Microelectronic engineering students buzz around the RIT cleanroom applying specialized chemicals on semiconductor wafers. It is the first of many precisely controlled steps needed to convert the wafer into computer chips, tech used in today’s electronic devices.
For Adheesh Ankolekar, a first-year student in the program, it is the first phase of a career that is coming to fruition at RIT.
“I don’t really know anything—yet—but there is nowhere else I’d rather be right now,” he said.
Shayan Gholizadeh, well into his microsystems engineering doctoral program, uses the same technology to develop nanomembranes for tissue engineering and drug testing.
Both Ankolekar and Gholizadeh represent points on a pathway transforming students into process engineers and nanotechnology researchers who are in high demand in the semiconductor industry.
Computer chips, sometimes referred to as semiconductor devices, microelectronics, or integrated circuits, are elemental blocks in today’s electronics. They are used to power nearly every digital electronic device, appliances, and automobiles.
