News: Microelectronics
24 February 2022
Wolfspeed announces $250,000 gift to SUNY Poly Foundation
State University of New York Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) has joined Wolfspeed Inc (formerly Cree Inc) of Durham, NC, USA in announcing a $250,000 Wolfspeed Curriculum Gift, which is earmarked for enhancing educational science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) opportunities for SUNY Poly students, especially those from traditionally underserved backgrounds. The funding is expected to provide new high-tech equipment and expanded curricula at SUNY Poly that dovetails with Wolfspeed’s future workforce needs, ensuring that students’ educational experience is highly translatable to the opportunities that will be available as part of Wolfspeed’s Mohawk Valley Fab — the world’s first 200mm silicon carbide (SiC) fabrication facility.
“At Wolfspeed, we are passionate about giving back to the communities where we live and work, this includes supporting and educating the next generation of the high-tech workforce,” says the firm’s chief technical officer & co-founder Dr John Palmour. “We invest with strategic partners such as SUNY Poly to build a strong talent pipeline to develop great technologists and leaders,” he adds.
SUNY Poly’s partnership with Wolfspeed will “further facilitate even deeper synergies between our semiconductor-centered curricula and the critical workforce needs of Wolfspeed’s world-class fab at the Marcy Nanocenter,” says SUNY Poly’s acting president Dr Tod A. Laursen. “This initiative will provide an impactful platform for students to graduate with the skills needed to support the Mohawk Valley and New York State’s burgeoning semiconductor industry, allowing them to seamlessly transition to Wolfspeed’s state-of-the-art fab thanks to their invaluable commitment to our students, this institution, and our region,” he adds.
“I am extremely grateful to Wolfspeed for providing critical, targeted funding so that growing numbers of SUNY Poly students will have an education that sets the stage for a lifetime of success working with Wolfspeed in the Mohawk Valley,” comments SUNY Poly Foundation chair Stephen Teti.
Working closely together, SUNY Poly faculty and Wolfspeed designees will determine new equipment that can complement strategically targeted coursework to align the skillsets of students in related innovation-centered programs with the experience and knowledge required for success at Wolfspeed’s Marcy fab. Full content updates are planned for such programs starting in the 2022/2023 academic year.
More specifically, curricular expansion includes the following areas, with the development of certificates or micro-credentials for each that students will receive upon completion:
- electronic device testing course modules coupled with expanded lab testing modules to ensure working knowledge of device operation principles;
- undergraduate-level robotics/automation/sensors and controls (mechatronics), with the incorporation of big data at tool level analyses for advanced process controls;
- use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) algorithms across each of the engineering and engineering technology programs to enable related core skills;
- increased access and use of semiconductor fab-related tools focused on deposition, patterning, etch and analytical equipment, among other key areas.
The curriculum gift is also complementary to Wolfspeed’s earlier commitment in 2021 to fund a $2,000,000 scholarship program over 10 years, which has already awarded a total of $46,000 to SUNY Poly students at both its Albany and Utica campuses who are interested in pursuing a career in the semiconductor industry. Wolfspeed has also engaged SUNY Poly students through hands-on internship opportunities and a donation of $25,000 to the SUNY Poly Foundation in November 2019 to expand SUNY Poly’s STEM programs.
Wolfspeed’s co-founders Dr John Edmond and Dr John Palmour were also previously announced SUNY Polytechnic Institute Endowed Faculty Chairs, representing $1,500,000 in funding over five years that underpins the continued expansion of STEM opportunities for students at SUNY Poly.
Wolfspeed is currently constructing its Mohawk Valley Fab in Marcy, New York, and has committed to creating more than 600 new jobs within eight years as well as providing internships for SUNY students as part of its presence. The efforts aim to develop an advanced manufacturing-oriented workforce development initiative across the SUNY system to prepare a 21st-century workforce for the long-term, high-quality employment and advancement opportunities that the new facility will present.
SUNY Poly students receive Cree | Wolfspeed Scholarships
