This sponsored article is brought to you by Purdue University.

The CHIPS America Act was a response to a worsening shortfall in engineers equipped to meet the growing demand for advanced electronic devices. That need persists. In its 2023 policy report, Chipping Away: Assessing and Addressing the Labor Market Gap Facing the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, the Semiconductor Industry Association forecast a demand for 69,000 microelectronic and semiconductor engineers between 2023 and 2030—including 28,900 new positions created by industry expansion and 40,100 openings to replace engineers who retire or leave the field.

This number does not include another 34,500 computer scientists (13,200 new jobs, 21,300 replacements), nor does it count jobs in other industries that require advanced or custom-designed semiconductors for controls, automation, communication, product design, and the emerging systems-of-systems technology ecosystem.

Purdue University is taking charge, leading semiconductor technology and workforce development in the U.S. As early as Spring 2022, Purdue University became the first top engineering school to offer an online Master’s Degree in Microelectronics and Semiconductors.

U.S. News & World Report has ranked the university’s graduate engineering program among America’s 10 best every year since 2012 (and among the top 4 since 2022)

“The degree was developed as part of Purdue’s overall semiconductor degrees program,” says Purdue Prof. Vijay Raghunathan, one of the architects of the semiconductor program. “It was what I would describe as the nation’s most ambitious semiconductor workforce development effort.”

Prof. Vijay Raghunathan, one of the architects of the online Master’s Degree in Microelectronics and Semiconductors at Purdue.Purdue University

Purdue built and announced its bold high-technology online program while the U.S. Congress was still debating the $53 billion “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act” (CHIPS America Act), which would be passed in July 2022 and signed into law in August.

Today, the online Master’s in Microelectronics and Semiconductors is well underway. Students learn leading-edge equipment and software and prepare to meet the challenges they will face in a rejuvenated, and critical, U.S. semiconductor industry.

Is the drive for semiconductor education succeeding?

“I think we have conclusively established that the answer is a resounding ‘Yes,’” says Raghunathan. Like understanding big data, or being able to program, “the ability to understand how semiconductors and semiconductor-based systems work, even at a rudimentary level, is something that everybody should know. Virtually any product you design or make is going to have chips inside it. You need to understand how they work, what the significance is, and what the risks are.”

Earning a Master’s in Microelectronics and Semiconductors

Students pursuing the Master’s Degree in Microelectronics and Semiconductors will take courses in circuit design, devices and engineering, systems design, and supply chain management offered by several schools in the university, such as Purdue’s Mitch Daniels School of Business, the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the School of Materials Engineering, among others.

Professionals can also take one-credit-hour courses, which are intended to help students build “breadth at the edges,” a notion that grew out of feedback from employers: Tomorrow’s engineering leaders will need broad knowledge to connect with other specialties in the increasingly interdisciplinary world of artificial intelligence, robotics, and the Internet of Things.

“This was something that we embarked on as an experiment 5 or 6 years ago,” says Raghunathan of the one-credit courses. “I think, in hindsight, that it’s turned out spectacularly.”

A researcher adjusts imaging equipment in a lab in Birck Nanotechnology Center, home to Purdue’s advanced research and development on semiconductors and other technology at the atomic scale.Rebecca Robiños/Purdue University

The Semiconductor Engineering Education Leader

Purdue, which opened its first classes in 1874, is today an acknowledged leader in engineering education. U.S. News & World Report has ranked the university’s graduate engineering program among America’s 10 best every year since 2012 (and among the top 4 since 2022). And Purdue’s online graduate engineering program has ranked in the country’s top three since the publication started evaluating online grad programs in 2020. (Purdue has offered distance Master’s degrees since the 1980s. Back then, of course, course lectures were videotaped and mailed to students. With the growth of the web, “distance” became “online,” and the program has swelled.)

Thus, Microelectronics and Semiconductors Master’s Degree candidates can study online or on-campus. Both tracks take the same courses from the same instructors and earn the same degree. There are no footnotes, asterisks, or parentheses on the diploma to denote online or in-person study.

“If you look at our program, it will become clear why Purdue is increasingly considered America’s leading semiconductors university” —Prof. Vijay Raghunathan, Purdue University

Students take classes at their own pace, using an integrated suite of proven online-learning applications for attending lectures, submitting homework, taking tests, and communicating with faculty and one another. Texts may be purchased or downloaded from the school library. And there is frequent use of modeling and analytical tools like Matlab. In addition, Purdue is also the home of national the national design-computing resources nanoHUB.org (with hundreds of modeling, simulation, teaching, and software-development tools) and its offspring, chipshub.org (specializing in tools for chip design and fabrication).

From R&D to Workforce and Economic Development

“If you look at our program, it will become clear why Purdue is increasingly considered America’s leading semiconductors university, because this is such a strategic priority for the entire university, from our President all the way down,” Prof. Raghunathan sums up. “We have a task force that reports directly to the President, a task force focused only on semiconductors and microelectronics. On all aspects—R&D, the innovation pipeline, workforce development, economic development to bring companies to the state. We’re all in as far as chips are concerned.”