Prof heads semiconductor project

To several University students, the project has provided long awaited hands-on experience and a good senior design project. To Mechanical Engineering Professor Ira Cohen, it has been seven and a half years of hard work. Since the spring of 1984, Cohen has led a team of six student assistants in researching ways to improve the assembly of semiconductor chips for a prominent local company. The research project began when the local supplier, Kulicke and Soffa, contacted Cohen to answer several questions about how to process the integrated circuit chips faster, more efficiently and more defect-free. Integrated circuit chips are used in VCR's, answering machines, CD players, computers and calculators, as well as innumerable other devices. "Integrated circuit chips are ubiquitous," Cohen said. Since 1984, Cohen has worked with Engineering students and Mechanical Engineering Professor Portonovo Ayyaswamy on related research for K & S, sponsored also by the National Science Foundation and the University. "The work we do is related to the manufacturing of semi-conductor chip packages," Cohen said. "It's been found that if you take, say, a piece of silicon, or one of a number of different kinds of semi-conductors, you can put different layers of conductors and insulators, so that in a few square millimeters, you can have thousands of circuit elements." To emphasize the chips' importance, Cohen said that when he was doing his doctoral thesis, before the introduction of integrated circuit chips, he used a computer the size of a large auditorium that took an entire weekend to complete one run on a problem. Now, because of the development of the semiconductor chips, the same problem can be done in three to five seconds with a lap-top computer. Carlos Ramos, who graduated last month with a degree in mechanical engineering, joined Cohen's research team over two years ago. Ramos said the project allowed him to learn a number of research skills he otherwise would not have learned because he said he feels the education in the Engineering School is more theoretical than practical. "It gave me a lot of hands-on experience and really rounded the education I had at Penn," he said. Beginning the summer after his sophomore year, Ramos was an assistant to the group of seniors working with Cohen on the project. During his junior year, Ramos worked on the project as part of his work-study program, and during his senior year, it became his senior project. Last semester, the work he did was mainly independent study. Cohen said Ramos was "the most valuable student [he'd] had in the lab" and that his presence added a factor of continuity to the project. Engineering School senior Amina Ali, a mechanical engineering student, joined the project last summer to begin her senior design project. She also said the project has provided her with hands-on experience she otherwise would not have received. "I learned a lot about how to use the laboratory and lab equipment . . . It also gave me the opportunity to put use to the formulas I'd learned and actually come up with designs," Ali added.

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