Weekendschool visits CITC
January 28, 2025 – What better way to spend your Sunday than learning about chip packaging? Nearly 30 students from IMC Weekendschool visited CITC and toured the labs under guidance of our colleagues Henry Antony Martin and Noud Schoenmakers.
Budding scientists
They also worked on coding and decoding pixel drawings and continued their microbit programming project. There were certainly some budding scientists in this group – we were impressed with their knowledge and happy to host them!
January 25, 2025 – CITC celebrates the International Day of Education together with the students who finished their Semiconductor Packaging minor this week. Congratulations to all of you – your hard work on the CITC, NXP Semiconductors and ASMPT ALSI assignments has paid off. Best of luck with the rest of your education and perhaps we will see you again, as an intern or colleague.
Minor student becomes intern
One of the students, Alex Harper, soon returned to CITC as an intern. In the coming months, he will be working on slit nozzle dispensing. His assignment focuses on the design of the nozzle and process research. For those who like to have a little background on this topic: current slit nozzles that are commercially available are relatively expensive and have a long lead time of 2-3 months. CITC worked on an alternative design (patent pending) which differs from other nozzles in that the design is flexible.
Iterations in both dispense volume and shapes are easy to make. Production is done with 3D printing, which is cheap and makes the nozzles disposable. Alex will work on improvements to the current design and define process parameters – one cannot exist without the other.
December 10, 2024 – Last week, the mayor and aldermen of Nijmegen visited Noviotech Campus. The Gemeente Nijmegen has been involved with CITC from the beginning, so we were delighted to welcome them.
Introduction to chip packaging
Francesca Chiappini introduced them to the world of chip packaging, CITC’s activities and ambition, and the societal challenges we are working on. It was great to see the continued involvement of local government – thank you for visiting!
November 4, 2024 – For the second year in a row, a group of Panamanian professors visited CITC. The professors took on the role of students during a week full of practical work in the CITC labs and visits to neighboring semiconductor (packaging) companies such as NXP Semiconductors and Neways Electronics International NV.
Expand practical knowledge and experience
They already followed the theoretical part of the Semiconductor Packaging University Program and now got the chance to expand their practical knowledge and experience. After many hours in the lab, they received a well-deserved certificate… and a pack of stroopwafels to take back to Panama.
IESTEC conference
Last week, our education consultant Joop Bruines traveled to Panama to speak at the IESTEC conference. He talked about challenges in semiconductor packaging and the CITC approach to address them. This visit was a nice prelude to the professors’ stay in the Netherlands.
October 28, 2024 – Many happy faces at CITC from students who graduated from this year’s edition of the Semiconductor Packaging University Program.
Theory only
The group of students who only followed the theoretical part received their certificates on October 15 and last Friday we awarded three certificates to the students who also followed the practical part. Congratulations to all! We hope that you can use the knowledge and experience you gained through the program in your daily work.
October 17, 2024 – We were pleased to receive visitors from Canada today. A delegation from several photonics companies visited the Noviotech Campus and stopped by at CITC.
Technology roadmap
Our program manager Integrated Photonics Packaging Sander Dorrestein gave them an update on our work in photonics and explained our Integrated Photonics Technology Roadmap. And of course, the visit was concluded with a tour of our lab facilities.
We would like to thank Fanny Bousquet from the Canadian embassy for organizing this visit.
October 2, 2024 – On September 25, we welcomed almost 90 people to our first CITC Innovation Day. Together with our partners Delft University of Technology and Holst Centre we updated the audience about the latest developments in chip packaging.
Keynote speakers
After two keynote speeches in the morning by Kouchi Zhang – ‘Heterogenous system integration and packaging – the key success factor of semiconductors in EU’ and Jaap Lombaers – ‘Chip integration – sexy again and in need of innovation’, we had 8 innovation pitches and a poster market in the afternoon.
Innovation pitches
For those interested in the topics of the innovation pitches:
- Edsger Smits (CITC) – ‘Package development for power: towards green and efficient electronics’
- Sander Dorrestein (CITC) – ‘How CITC semiconductorizes integrated photonics assembly and packaging’
- Gerwin Gelinck (Holst Centre/PITC) – ‘Introducing Photonic Integration Technology Centre’
- Henk van Zeijl (TU Delft) – ‘The Fabric of Chip Integration Technology’
- Francesca Chiappini (CITC) – ‘Technologies for Antenna-in-Package at CITC’
- Gari Arutinov (Holst Centre) – ‘Laser processes for microLED integration: Die Transfer | Bumping | Repair’
- Hylke B. Akkerman (Holst Centre) – ‘3D structural microelectronics by additive manufacturing’
- Mark Luke Farrugia, PMP (CITC) – ‘Competitive and Sustainable Advanced Packaging – CSAP’
It was a pleasure to have you all at the Noviotech Campus and we hope to see you again in two years!
September 26, 2024 – On September 24, mayor Bruls of Nijmegen and Marlou Peet-de Bruin officially opened our new accommodotion. In tribute to our late founder and first general manager, the new lab has been named the Barry Peet lab.
Innovative mentality
In his speech, chairman of the Supervisory Board Roel Fonville explained which character traits of Barry have led to the current culture and innovative mentality of CITC: “Barry was a people person with a genuine interest in people, what they do and what moves them, with curiosity about new technology. He did this in a playful way towards all involved, with creativity, curiosity, entrepreneurship and enthusiasm. How can this character and innovative style resonate better in the future than by giving this new beautiful accommodation his name?”
September 23, 2024 – What a fun day we had last Saturday! CITC made its debut at the Nijmegen Technology Day.
Our QFN competition where children could win a stroopwafel attracted many visitors who also wanted to know more about chip packaging.
Career in STEM
Together with our partner Sempro Technologies BV, we entertained a few hundred children and their parents. And now we hope that some of those kids will choose an education and career in STEM (and preferably chip research).
September 16, 2024 – What a morning it was at CITC! Now that we have moved to our new accommodation, we finally have room for the Boschman molding machine that we received in April.
Nerve-wracking
The molding machine had to be moved from the warehouse to its new home at CITC. It was nerve-wracking at times but the movers did a careful and very good job, the machine is now in place.
Last step in production
The molding machine offers us the possibility to carry out the last step in the production process in-house. This allows the packaging we develop to be fully tested for reliability and consistency.