Urban League Summer Camp: Day 6

So today may have been Monday, but we weren't going to let that get us down - Dr. Mike Jackson over in Microelectronic Engineering was going to give us a tour, yay! So after discussing the schedule for the next couple days, and freaking out over the hostage baby balloon scandal (apparently Sterling was babysitting, uh-oh...), we hoofed over to Engineering Hall and met Dr. Mike and his student helper Nate.

First we learned about what MicroE even is, and what microelectronic engineers do. Here Dr. Mike is showing us a circuit board.

One thing microelectronic engineers do is figure out how to make circuit boards tiny. Here Dr. Mike is showing us a silicon wafer, which has hundreds of tiny circuits on it. This way circuits can be made smaller and more cost effectively.

Now it's time to go into the clean rooms! First we have to clean off our shoes.

Then we have to get suited up!

Here we all are (me included) in our clean hoods, suits, shoe covers, safety goggles, and gloves.

This is in the Photolithography room. No, my color balance isn't off - this is basically a "dark room" for photolithography. The photosensitive emulsion is sensitive to ultraviolet light, so UV and blue are filtered out of the lights. That leaves us with red and green (as in, yellow).

Here Dr. Mike is showing us some circuits and discussing how silicon discs get made.

Here we discussed each step of the manufacturing process and looked at silicon wafers at each step. Using the camera and microscope (Imaging Science FTW!), the circuits can be inspected and problems can be troubleshooted.

Now Nate is going to help us etch a wafer.

Watching the machine do the etching. We used sulfur and fluorine gases in the process. In the end we were able to measure the difference in thickness to see how much we shaved off.

After this we headed back to CIS to revisit the vision lab, who graciously invited us back to see another type of eye tracker. This time, Prati and Liz explained the SMI eye tracker, which is a fixed device (as opposed to the portable eye tracker). Here, the subject sits at a computer equipped with the device and simply looks around, without having to wear any equipment.

Watching a silent episode of Jeopardy using the SMI eyetracker.

After this we were out of time. On their way out the door, the kids were telling me again how much fun they had today! Yeah!

Once again there are many more images from today than what I posted here. Check them out on the CIS Picasa site.