For awareness on clean rooms and their process flows
An educative team lead by Céline Ternon, professor at Grenoble-INP/UGA, has developed two virtual reality tools, under the Nanoelec/CHIF program, with the aim of enabling as many students as possible to discover the microelectronics clean room environment, the notion of process flow and the various characterization techniques required to monitor a technological process in microelectronics hardware fabrication.
Céline Ternon & al. Clean Room mission or virtual reality for microelectronics learning. Talk online at Euromat 2021 Conference. © Grenoble-INP
We chose to rely on an electronic device attractive to students: the photovoltaic cell” Céline Ternon says. First of all, a virtual reality visit to the CIME-Nanotech clean room – developed with the Maison pour la science under the Idex UGA project and Nanolec/Chif program – allows immersion in the situation, a presentation of the process flow, the machines and the environment. Next, a video game allows students to characterize the materials throughout the integration process as if they were actually in the clean room. “Finally, we have chosen an original scenario to arouse the curiosity and motivation of the participants. Thus, the players take on the role of a spy for an activist association wishing to make all the inventions and technologies that are beneficial to the planet and humanity available to all mankind. The association’s next mission is to obtain the architecture of the latest first-generation solar cell manufactured in the CIME-Nanotech clean room. To do this, the spy first joins a visit to the clean room open to the public (virtual tour), which enables her or him to prepare the spying mission during which the target data are collected (video game)”, reports Céline Ternon.