Apply for Microelectronics: Solar Voltaic Manufacturing - AASc

Program overview

What Portland Community College says about their program:
"PCC’s Microelectronics Technology program has earned a reputation for excellence. In contrast to similar programs, our program is specifically designed to meet the needs of the industry. PCC enjoys a strong partnership with local semiconductor manufacturers. You can equip yourself for success by acquiring skills that are in high demand while benefiting from these strong industry partnerships. You are trained to work in the many local fabs as equipment or maintenance technicians and will be able to perform preventative and corrective maintenance and repair on the complex process equipment used in the manufacture of integrated circuits and solar cells. This degree option was added in 2008 with the arrival of the solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing industry to the Portland area. Some PV processes are extremely similar to those used for integrated circuit manufacturing. The overall processing is simpler, but the equipment tends to be of a much larger industrial scale. This area of study puts greater emphasis on equipment systems and maintenance with some differences in automation technology.

Equipment technicians can find it relatively easy to transition between the PV and MT industries. This can be seen in the similarities between the MT AAS and the solar option. This is exhibited by the reduced emphasis on chemistry and the added circuit analysis requirements."