Pennsylvania Launches Associate Degree Program for Semiconductor Manufacturing
Pennsylvania Governer Tom Ridge recently kicked off a nationally unique semiconductor-manufacturing associate degree program at Penn State University.
The degree program is designed to address the technician shortfall in the rapidly growing semiconductor and semiconductor-supply industry in Pennsylvania.
The Commonwealth, Penn State, Penn College of Technology and the semiconductor industry have jointly developed the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SMT) degree to help retain and grow the semiconductor industry in Pennsylvania.
Business Facilities, a leading national site selection publication, ranked Pennsylvania No. 10 overall in its August issue. The ranking is a leap of five spots from the state's previous ranking.
The two-year SMT associate degree program will be offered in cooperation with the Pennsylvania College of Technology. It will include three semesters of study at Penn College in Williamsport and a fourth capstone semester with experience in the Penn State Nanofabrication Facility. This fourth semester will provide hands-on training in one of the few university-based, state-of-the-art clean-room facilities in the nation.
Gov. Ridge has released $4 million in state funding over the last two years for the program through Pennsylvania's Ben Franklin/IRC programs. The state funding has helped leverage Penn State's $11 million investment in the program. Unique aspects of the program will include tuition grants for graduates who remain and work in Pennsylvania and the experience of training on actual manufacturing equipment in the nanofabrication facility.
Some of the major players in Pennsylvania's semiconductor industry are: Air Products of Lehigh and Northampton counties; II-VI Inc. of Butler County; Harris Semiconductor, Luzerne County; Lucent Technologies, Berks and Lehigh counties; and CFM Technologies in Chester County.
For more information: Steve Aaron, Deputy Press Secretary of the Commonwealth News Bureau. Tel: 717-783-1116.