BOARD #132: Further Signal Integrity Experiences in Undergraduate Education

Signal integrity has been identified as one of the key areas for scientific education and research at the national level. However, nationally there is a signal and power integrity academic gap. For instance, it has been pointed out by a well-known educator and researcher that: “The gap between the demand in the industry and the supply of engineers with signal integrity design skills is widening.” Furthermore, having signal/power integrity experiences are of critical importance for Pennsylvania since the Harrisburg metropolitan area has one of the highest concentrations of connector companies in the world. In addition, our sister campus has received funding to establish a hub under the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act. As is known, the federal government has budgeted about $280 billion in new funding for domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors through the CHIPS Act. These new semiconductor chips are tightly packed with signal interconnects densely integrated into small spaces where there exist several coupling mechanisms leading to signal integrity problems. Hence, it is necessary to analyze signal and power integrity, and our campus has expertise in this area. Another important aspect of the CHIPS Act is to develop a skilled a diverse pipeline of workers for building the national semiconductor industry and its associated industries, such as connectors and PCB manufacturing. In a previous paper, we reported that one of the problems with a signal integrity experience is the type of equipment, such a high-speed sampling oscilloscope and advanced vector network analyzers, that are typically used in the SI laboratory, which tends to be very expensive and beyond the standard laboratory equipment in an undergraduate program. In this paper, we report on the efforts that we have made to keep our signal integrity lab current with new laboratory experiences and capstone projects and undergraduate research. For example, recently, we have obtained support from the Office Naval Research and the local administration to acquire new Vector Network Analyzer to enhance undergraduate/graduate education and research in signal integrity. We have also received a time domain reflectometer (TDR) donation from a local company, and submitted a new Major Research Instrumentation (MRI), National Science Foundation to update the SI Lab. With the updated equipment and software, we also report new student experiences through course projects, funded capstone projects, and internships that keep students current with the advances in the SI. Furthermore, SI experiences have opened career pathways in a number of local and national companies. We can proudly state that we have graduated over sixty students who have taken a course on signal integrity or have done internships at the signal integrity laboratory and are now working in the SI field worldwide. Furthermore, students highly rated the course (6/7) and provided comments such as “Lectures and hands-on during labs. The use of many SI equipment and simulation tools plays a big part on understanding the materials.”