Samsung STEM Outreach Day (By Mark Craig, Physics Instructor)

AP Physics classes recently traveled to Samsung Austin Semiconductor to attend a STEM outreach day at their advanced chip fabrication facility here in town.  With an aggregate investment of ~$17 billion, this facility presently stands as one of the largest and most advanced chip manufacturing centers in the world, with the ability to fabricate chips at minimum feature sizes of 10 to 15 nm (billionth of a meter).  For reference, one's hair diameter is about a thousand times larger!
 
 
The day started with a walking tour that included a brief history of chip manufacturing across the industry and a discussion of key technological advancements achieved over the past several decades. Samsung engineers then provided a high-level presentation of the manufacturing process flow that is used in taking a bare silicon-wafer substrate to a final fabricated wafer with hundreds of chips arrayed across it.

To cap the morning off, St. Michael's students toured an observation deck above the manufacturing floor of the "fab" where automation and robotics were abundant. Few workers were seen on the factory floor, which led to an interesting and important discussion about "robot-proof" occupations, and what to shop for in evaluating technical academic programs at universities. 
 
Lunch, a mock clean room gowning session, and a meet-and-greet with young Samsung engineers capped off the day. A range of excellent topics were discussed, including the typical engineer workday, trade-offs between various college majors, pay scales for engineers at varying education levels, college-level internships, and the importance of rigor and academic effort in high-school now to best prepare students for the next stage.
 
Samsung has an excellent STEM community outreach program, and we thank them for their continued generosity shown towards St. Michael's.
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