On Friday, Penn State University announced it would be partnering with the National Sun Yat-Sen University (NSYSU) in Taiwan to focus on the development of semiconductor education and research.
The universities said a memorandum of understanding between the Penn State College of Engineering and the NSYSU College of Engineering and College of Semiconductor & Advanced Technology Research was signed in early April. Officials said the fast-growing semiconductor technology industry in the U.S. and the semiconductor chips manufacturing industry in Taiwan helped form the initiative.
“The semiconductor industry is expected to be a trillion-dollar industry by 2030,” Madhavan Swaminathan, head of electrical engineering, William E. Leonhard Endowed Chair in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Center for Heterogeneous Integration of Micro Electronic Systems (CHIMES) at Penn State, said. “Taiwan manufactures more than 50 percent of the world’s chips, and the U.S. is investing $52 billion dollars as part of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act to fuel innovations and leadership in this field. The work at NSYSU and Penn State is specifically poised in this direction and provides an opportunity like never before to be involved in the future of semiconductors.”
The MOU outlines plans to create opportunities to collaborate in the fields of semiconductor technology and photonics, officials said, including professional training programs; faculty, graduate student and/or post-graduate student exchanges; joint research projects; research exchanges and academic events.
The collaboration also sparked the creation of a one-year master’s program in semiconductor technology at Penn State, the first cohort of which will join the program in Fall 2024.