When students head off to Arizona, it’s usually to enjoy sun and fun in the great outdoors. For four standout UCF engineering students, a trip to the Grand Canyon State was the culmination of months of training for the opportunity to intern for a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing.
Electrical engineering majors Arianna Balsamo and Connor Rick, and mechanical engineering majors Matthew Ally and Andy Chan were chosen as the inaugural cohort of the department’s newest undergraduate fellowship program with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
As part of the program, the students worked 20 hours a week in UCF’s cleanroom facilities during the fall and spring semesters, gaining hands-on experience in operating and maintaining equipment before embarking on a summer internship at TSMC’s Phoenix, Arizona fabrication plant, or fab.
Rick says he became more interested in semiconductor manufacturing as the program progressed.
“It’s one of the most complex processes there is, especially at the size that TSMC manufactures,” he says. “This complexity extends to the power infrastructure of the fab, which ensures that power is always available and stable. Because of how sensitive many of the fab’s tools are, the power architecture has a direct impact on the final output, as any instability can cause these tools to halt production.”
During his internship, Rick provided preventive maintenance to uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices for TSMC, and worked on a summer-long project to increase energy efficiency in these devices. He also had the opportunity to shadow engineers working in several areas, adding that he was able to experience aspects of engineering that he would “never see on an exam sheet.”
“The most valuable parts of my internship came from seeing engineers work on real systems rather than exclusively reviewing designs,” he says. “For example, I’d always seen a transformer as simply two coils drawn onto a page. In the internship, however, I got to see both large and small transformers in person, and I saw that the coils were just one part of a more complex system that involves managing its insulation, cooling and wear from constant usage.”
Balsamo’s interest in semiconductor manufacturing started when she attended the department’s SMART Workshop two years ago.
“I realized this industry is something that changes the world,” she says. “I saw how fascinating working on these devices is and since then I found [that] semiconductors was what I wanted to focus on.”
Balsamo served as a process engineer intern in the plant’s dry etching department and also worked on a summer project with the TSMC team. She says she was proud to be part of a team that made a significant contribution to the company.
“Thanks to the experiment I did, my team is saving more than 12 hours after every maintenance on their tools,” she says.
Balsamo says in addition to working in the cleanroom facilities at UCF, the pre-training session offered by TSMC and the department just before the internship was instrumental in ensuring she made the most of her opportunity.
“This training was completely tailored for our success,” she says. “It taught me many problem-solving skills and basic manufacturing concepts that made my internship experience better since I had a smooth transition from UCF to the industry.”
She adds that she is grateful for the support she has received from Department Chair Reza Abdolvand and Lab Manager Avra Kundu.
“I have done multiple internships, but this program has brought me a lot of joy and I can’t wait to see where my future is headed.”
- Written by Bel Huston