It is being delivered by a partnership of: semiconductor IP supply Semiwise, business physique TechWorks and NMI (National Microelectronics Institute), plus Pragmatic Semiconductor as a advisor.
“In the UK, we have numerous small to medium sized specialist chip companies looking to expand their operations,” stated TechWorks CEO Charles Sturman. “VRSFT will enable these companies to train staff at any time, without operational disruption and at low cost. TechWorks is excited to be supporting this activity through our NMI Network.”
“The project addresses the acute training needs of the semiconductor industry fuelled by the US and EU Chips Acts, the UK’s Semiconductor Programme and similar investments all over the world – by 2030 more than one million new semiconductor experts will be needed,” in accordance with Semiwise. “By leveraging virtual reality and augmented reality, the project provides an immersive virtual reality model of a modern fabrication facility, allowing trainees to interact with realistic representations of fabrication equipment and to learn about semiconductor manufacturing.”
VRSFT will mannequin a set of CMOS manufacturing tools, generic in addition to from particular manufactures, in a clear room whose format may be modified to satisfy explicit training wants.
“Opposite to the typical walk-through-a-clean-room educational videos, it has deep educational content at equipment, product fabrication, working practice and behaviour levels,” stated Semiwise CEO Asen Asenov. “It is enhanced by the use of Synopsys TCAD tools showing the outcome of each stage of the semiconductor fabrication process.”
Asenov was the founding father of Gold Standard Simulations (GSS), a 2010 University of Glasgow start-up constructed round a CAD-based ‘design-technology co-optimisation’ instrument chain. Synopsis purchased GSS in 2016 and now gives that instrument as what it calls ‘TCAD-to-Spice’ move – and continues to develop it in Glasgow.