RIT Receives $400K from National Science Foundation

Grant funds new optoelectronics-packaging lab and microscopes

The Center for Electronics Manufacturing and Assembly and the Semiconductor & Microsystems Fabrication Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology are sharing a $406,395 grant from the National Science Foundation for optoelectronics-packaging and microsystems research.

The grant helps RIT create the Centralized Laboratory for Imaging and Metrology for undergraduate courses, senior design projects and optoelectronics-packaging research. It also funds the purchase of a scanning electron microscope and a scanning acoustic microscope for the fabrication lab.

RIT’s College of Applied Science and Technology and Kate Gleason College of Engineering split the award from NSF’s Major Research Instrumentation program.

The Center for Electronics Manufacturing and Assembly also announced partnerships with Siemens Dematic Electronics Assembly Systems, Glenbrook Technologies Inc. and Matec Microelectronics to provide training and applied research in electronics packaging. In another partnership, REDCOM Laboratories Inc. in Victor is funding surface-mount technology and advanced-packaging process training, plastic-packaging delamination research and development of a lead-free research compendium for its employees through the center. Surface-mount technology involves the assembly of electronic and optical components onto printed circuit boards.

The center is developing a partnership to develop a compact photonic explorer—a pill-sized device that, when swallowed, captures images inside the human body. The device requires 12-millimeter circuit boards made by the center.