Lam Research and Indian Institute of Science Announce Pilot to Upskill Engineers in Semiconductor Fabrication Technology

AHMEDABAD — Lam Research India today announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. This MoU is aimed at jointly developing a customized course offering for Indian universities to teach semiconductor fabrication technology utilizing Lam Research’s SemiverseTM Solutions virtual fabrication software, SEMulator3D®.

With the agreement, Lam reaffirms its commitment to fostering the semiconductor ecosystem in India and collaborating with academia to solve industry challenges. Since opening its first facility in India two decades ago, Lam continues to build on its role in the country’s semiconductor industry, most recently opening a state-of-the-art India Center for Engineering in Bengaluru dedicated to the creation of new technologies needed in a time of rising semiconductor manufacturing complexity.

The program, scheduled to start in August 2023 with a cohort of 30 students, will focus on device integration, including physical design learning, process flow development and virtual metrology. IISc and Lam Research will work on the framework Pilot Course syllabus with the first stage expected to be completed by December 2023 and the second stage by June 2024.

The agreement follows an announcement by governments of the United States and India in June 2023. Lam Research targets to utilize the Semiverse Solutions portfolio to deliver a virtual nano fabrication environment to help train up to 60,000 semiconductor engineers in India over the next 10 years.

Commenting on the partnership, Rangesh Raghavan, Corporate Vice President & GM, India at Lam Research said, “IISc has been a longstanding partner for Lam Research in India and we are happy to extend our relationship to help spur talent development in the semiconductor industry. We anticipate that our relationship with IISc will play an instrumental role in helping to upskill engineers and address workforce requirements as India evolves as a semiconductor manufacturing hub.”

IISc and Lam Research intend to work with the Government of India and the Government of Karnataka to explore possibilities of extending the collaboration with other universities within and outside India once the Pilot Course proves successful. After the pilot with IISc, Lam Research aims to align this curriculum with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) curricula with the aim to meet its target to upskill up to 60,000 engineers over the next 10 years.

“India’s commitment to delivering 85,000 engineers by 2030 requires a transformative approach towards how we educate and train semiconductor engineers. The resources required to build a 2nm fab within a university are cost prohibitive. Training engineers in nanofabrication technologies in a virtual environment using industry-leading tools is a welcome step that will help address India’s semiconductor talent requirements in future. We are happy to partner with Lam Research in this regard. Lam Research has been our Industry Affiliate for many years, and this collaboration is an extension of our commitment to solving industry challenges through academic research and technological innovations,” said Prof. Srinivasan Raghavan, Chairperson of CeNSE, IISc.

As part of the course, students will get a chance to train on Lam Research’s SEMulator3D, a powerful 3D semiconductor process and integration modelling platform. The program is used by the world’s largest semiconductor companies, manufacturers, and foundries to model complete process flows and predict downstream ramifications of process changes that would otherwise require build-and-test cycles in the fab. Using SEMulator3D will help students learn to develop process flows and perform automated virtual experiments not feasible in the actual fab.

“As the criticality of semiconductors increases, the industry faces a major talent shortage to meet anticipated future demand. Educating the next generation of semiconductor engineers is even more daunting as it is cost-prohibitive for academic institutions to provide physical access to the most advanced nanotechnologies. This course will bring a paradigm shift for the education and training of the future Indian semiconductor workforce at greater speed and significantly reduced cost,” said David Fried, Corporate Vice President of Semiverse Solutions at Lam Research.

Lam India has been a part of CeNSE’s Industry Affiliate Program (IAP) since 2014 and is continuously engaging with the centre to collaborate on multiple innovative projects to advance the state of semiconductor technologies.