Expansion of CC-PRIME: Central Coast Partnership for Regional Industry-Focused Micro/Nanotechnology Education

From NSF news highlight (link below):

Today, the U.S. National Science Foundation and Intel Corporation announced a $7.6 million investment in six projects to advance equitable STEM education and training opportunities that strengthen the nation's semiconductor workforce. This investment, made through a Dear Colleague Letter: Enhancing Engineering Technology and Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Technician Education (ETSTE), represents just one piece of a previously announced 10-year collaboration between NSF and Intel that will, over time, invest $100 million to address semiconductor design and manufacturing challenges and workforce shortages nationwide.  

NSF's role in workforce training has become increasingly important, with significant investments in semiconductor manufacturing. Due to a nationwide shortage of semiconductors, the chip industry has struggled to meet the growing demand for chip-based products in the U.S., where only about 10% of the global supply is produced domestically. Through strong public-private partnerships, NSF is poised to address the needs of the future domestic semiconductor workforce through funding research and curriculum development across the nation's higher education institutions, including two-year colleges and four-year universities. 

"Today's announcement reaffirms NSF's commitment to strengthen the U.S. workforce and ensure we have the knowledge and skills needed for innovative semiconductor design and manufacturing," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "This investment will support talent development across the semiconductor industry and improve education and training opportunities in technology fields that are crucial for our global competitiveness." 

The projects are supported by two NSF programs — Advanced Technological Education (ATE) and Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) — through a public-private partnership between NSF and the Intel Corporation announced last year. Awards support full scholarships to students at two-year colleges and four-year universities and forge a modern approach to technician training programs and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. The ETSTE DCL encourages submission of proposals through both ATE and S-STEM programs, in accordance with the instructions, requirements, and deadlines specified in their respective solicitation. 

"This announcement underlines Intel’s ongoing efforts to strengthen the U.S. semiconductor workforce, specifically emphasizing technician training and support for community colleges. Intel invests in education and workforce development through private-public partnerships and ongoing collaborations with NSF. This initiative reflects Intel’s commitment to fostering innovation, driving economic growth, and preparing a skilled workforce to meet the evolving demands of semiconductor technologies. These efforts are crucial for maintaining a competitive semiconductor industry in the United States," said Richard Uhlig, senior fellow and director of Intel Labs at Intel Corporation. 

Awardees will engage with Intel Corporation and access Intel subject matter experts. These experts may offer guidance on semiconductor industry curriculum requirements, knowledge, skills and abilities, and best practices for developing new curricula and certificate programs. Intel experts may interact with the awardees in various ways, including maintaining regular contact and collaboration with principal investigators, sharing relevant resources and best practices, and facilitating connections between relevant programs. This engagement aims to foster a robust network of academic sharing and expertise exchange to accelerate work at the national scale.