The CNFM is the French institution that coordinates initial training and continuous education in microelectronics. For more than 15 years, the CNFM has been in charge of the coordination between universities, microelectronics industries and French authorities. The CNFM takes in each year more than 5000 students for practical works in 11 centers having common tools in IC design and complementary facilities in technology. The CNFM is also responsible for the purchasing and maintenance of common facilities, i.e. CAD tools, testers workstations. The CNFM also allows the collective manufacturing of training integrated circuits using the CMP service (Circuits Multi-Projects). At last, the CNFM takes part in several actions, regarding namely continuing education in microelectronics.

The Center for Automation Technologies (CAT) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is pioneering a novel model of industryuniversity collaboration. The model is built around the fundamental principle that education, research, and economic development must be tightly integrated into a program that provides first-rate responsiveness to the synergistic needs of its two major constituencies: graduate students and corporate clients.

The paper starts by looking at the competing paradigms in pursuing nanotechnology, namely the top-down approach originating from microelectronics, and the bottom-up approach inspired by biological sciences. This almost dogmatic dichotomy uncovers the challenges posed by interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge transfer. Several possible knowledge mechanisms are proposed using the analogy with the classical transfer phenomena theory, namely `diffusional', production are outlined. These possible mechanisms for knowledge transfer and production are then analyzed in the context of MEMS and nanotechnology development. This analysis is extended to formulate a framework for facilitating knowledge transfer and production in nanotechnology.

The increasing use of Internet-resources worldwide offers new chances in the development of net-based teaching and training materials. Especially in the area of life long learning that is becoming more and more important for persons who are involved in design, production or application of high-tech products in their professional lives, net-based training opens new perspectives. As ordinary classroom courses and centralized training seminars are expensive and draw personnel out of their productive working environments for prohibitively long periods, these traditional training techniques are not well suited to life long learning. This article addresses the results of the TRANSTEC-project. The project addresses this matter by providing a novel concept of interactive Internet-based training entities.

Finite State Machines (FSM) are models for functions commonly implemented in digital circuits such as timers, remote controls, and vending machines. Teaching FSM is core in the curriculum of many university digital electronic or discrete mathematics subjects. Students often have difficulties grasping the theoretical concepts in the design and analysis of FSM. This has prompted the author to develop an MS-Windows^TM compatible software, WinState, that provides a tutorial style teaching aid for understanding the mechanisms of FSM. The animated computer screen is ideal for visually conveying the required design and analysis procedures. WinState complements other software for combinatorial logic previously developed by the author, and enhances the existing teaching package by adding sequential logic circuits. WinState enables the construction of a students own FSM, which can be simulated, to test the design for functionality and possible errors.

It is common and correct to suppose that computers support flexible delivery of educational resources by offering virtual experiments that replicate and substitute for experiments traditionally offered in conventional teaching laboratories. However, traditional methods are limited by logistics, costs, and what is physically possible to accomplish on a laboratory bench. Virtual experiments allow experimental approaches to teaching and learning to transcend these limits. This paper analyses recent and current developments in educational software for 1^st- year physics, 2^nd-year electronics engineering and 3^rd-year communication engineering, based on three criteria: (1)Is the virtual experiment possible in a real laboratory? (2)How direct is the link between the experimental manipulation and the reinforcement of theoretical learning? (3) What impact might the virtual experiment have on the learner's acquisition of practical measurement skills? Virtual experiments allow more flexibility in the directness of the link between experimental manipulation and the theoretical message. However, increasing the directness of this link may reduce or even abolish the measurement processes associated with traditional experiments. Virtual experiments thus pose educational challenges: (a) expanding the design of experimentally based curricula beyond traditional boundaries and (b) ensuring that the learner acquires sufficient experience in making practical measurements.

Making the conceptual change from electricity as electrons moving in wires under the influence of voltage to electromagnetic energy embracing light and radio waves, using a mathematical learning sequence, has proven to be difficult for learners over the years. A `virtual learning engine' has been created to help begin this conceptual change in students' understanding of electricity by supporting the mathematical sequence with interactive action learning exercises and real world experimental observations. Development of the `virtual learning engine' is informed by current educational research and motivated primarily by the thrust into online education. Extensive consideration and assessment of learner desires led to clear goals and objectives providing a rigid framework for the `virtual learning engine' development. However, a flexible specification enabled creative input from both the academic and the software engineer. The result is an educationally sound flexible learning resource suitable for use by on- campus and off-campus students.

The rapidly growing markets for new microproducts is placing increasing demands on industry and the research community for graduates with both interdisciplinary skills and specialized knowledge. To meet this challenge a range of courses in microsystems technology have been and are being developed by universities, research centers and companies worldwide. In this paper the general characteristics of training courses and programs from a UK perspective are outlined. One example is given of a university based modular masters degree course which gives students a basic understanding of silicon and non-silicon fabrication technologies and major design and assembly issues. Design and simulation is introduced in a practical way, via commercial finite element analysis and electromagnetic/electrostatic computer aided design exercises. The importance of design-for-manufacture is implicit and is a central theme in the course project. Another course currently at the design stage, has a slightly different emphasis but with similar underlying principles, is outlined. A mechanisms is also described of how training for industry can be facilitated through knowledge and technology transfer to companies by means of an industry- academic network.

This paper presents a new innovative way of teaching modern sensor technology and practical MEMS-processing by using an in-house Multi Project Wafer (MPW) process especially developed for education purposes. This process has been used as the base for a project course called Sensor Technology, which includes a substantial laboratory component. In this project, the student actively follows the complete sensor development process from design and fabrication to the evaluation of modern MEMS sensors. The design and CAD work for five different sensor types (each having several different versions) has completed prior to the course but the students are introduced to the tools used for the design and simulation of microstructures. The students themselves perform most of the fabrication steps in the cleanroom and all evaluation of the fabricated sensors. Our new in-house MPW-process allows the students to fabricate five different piezoresistive sensor types for measuring flow (both mechanical and thermal transducers), acceleration (both 1- and 3-axis), pressure and angular velocity using one mask set consisting of only four masks. Each sensor type then is produced in many different versions (size and geometry) giving the students flexibility to choose sensors for specific applications during the sensor evaluation. Successful evaluations of pressure, flow and acceleration sensors fabricated by the students have been carried out. The sensor evaluation part also gives the student experience in practical electrical measurements on real devices. Both the course concept and the unique educational MPW-process will be described in this paper.

MEMS by definition is interdisciplinary and a software that facilitates collaboration will be useful in both research and teaching. In this paper, a software, called CyberCAD that enables collaborative design via the Internet is described. The software is Java-based and is therefore platform independent. This project is ongoing and the completed portion includes the mathematical engine used for designing and rendering. In this paper, the object-oriented features of the software under construction are described. Although, the software is not ready for MEMS applications yet, the attributes that the software possesses will enable it to facilitate the development in the future.

This paper discusses the development of the Massey University Information Engineering related degree majors and the design of the curriculum. The specific microelectronics educational needs of graduates in a small but well developed nation are addressed. The content and form of the specialist final year paper in advanced digital technology is described and explained. Finally the need for educational tools in MEMS and the nature of educational rather than production tools is discussed.

This paper describes the development in Australia of thin film resistance microbolometer technology and associated infrared sensors, beginning with simple device structures more than 40 years ago and culminating in contemporary micromachined focal plane detector arrays. A brief summary is given of research achievements, with the aim of placing in historic perspective Australian work in comparison with overseas development. The research and development projects described herein were carried out at the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DSTO), Salisbury, South Australia, in collaboration with other national research organizations, and supported by the Australian microelectronic and electro- optic industries. The core technology of fabricating bolometer detectors by bulk and surface micromachining on silicon wafer substrates was established at DSTO during the 1970s, more than a decade before the acronym MEMS was coined, and thus represents pioneering work in this field, both in Australia and in the international research community.