Chemical Engineers are Developing Electronics | AIChE

Chemical Engineers are Developing Electronics

Last updated May 21, 2024

All the extraordinary electronic gadgets and devices that abound in our modern life owe their existence to the semiconductor chip. Providing a source of cheap, fast computing power, these chips are found in everything from children’s toys to phones, automobiles, medical sensors, and communications satellites.

Chemical engineers contributed to the invention of semiconductor chips. These versatile scientists are vital in the ongoing development of advanced materials and the manufacturing processes required to produce them.

Achievements

Our electronic devices get smaller and smaller, yet they continue to do more and more. Semiconductor chips shrink as their data capacity increases, thanks to advances in design and manufacturing brought about through the ingenuity and creativity of chemical engineers. More

Innovations

Over a relatively short time the revolutionary semiconductor industry has provided numerous superstars. Andrew Grove is in that group, as one of the founders of Intel Corporation. Farhang Shadman, founder of the Engineering Research Center, is another. More

Frontiers

Exponential growth—doubling of the chip’s capacity every 18 months - as well as clean and sustainable manufacturing and the advanced additive process of chip manufacture are foremost in the future development of semiconductors and their contributions to our lives. More