From left Prof. Chen Lin-Lin, Executive Board President Robert-Jan Smits, & Education Division Director Lee Yen-Yi

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU Eindhoven) in the Netherlands held the Eindhoven Semicon Summer School for international students from August 26 to August 30, 2024. This summer school on semiconductors and photonics developed out of the Eindhoven Taiwan Summer School held in 2023, during which students from Taiwan and TU Eindhoven students attended lectures and visited key industry companies in the region. This year this university hosted 60 students from 16 top universities in nine countries. Among them were 15 master's degree and PhD students, and six professors from National Taiwan University, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, and National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. The other participants came from Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Thailand, the USA, and Vietnam.

The university has enhanced its strategic partnerships with key-industry players located in the region to train more people to help meet the increasing demand for professionals to work in the industry and companies such as ASML, imec, IBM, ASM, TSMC, NXP, Axelera, and Neways took part in the summer school. As well as attending lectures given by experts from industry and academia—including some by the visiting professors from Taiwan—the students went on study tours to various semiconductor companies, met with young professionals, and worked together in teams on challenging projects, networking and fostering possibilities for future exchanges and collaborations.

The program focused on different themes each day, encompassing materials and devices, manufacturing and tools, novel materials and 3D integration, fabrication and integration, circuits to system design, and novel computing paradigms. Robert-Jan Smits, President of the Executive Board of the university, spoke at the opening and welcomed all the participants. Dr. Lee Yen-Yi李彥儀, Director of the Education Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the EU and Belgium, and Education Division Secretary Lin Ya-Ting林雅婷 attended the opening and then met with Robert-Jan Smits and Prof. Chen Lin-Lin陳玲鈴, the Director of International Scientific Relations, to discuss further cooperation with six semiconductor colleges in Taiwan. They also met the students and professors from Taiwan and encouraged them to pursue further study and research related to semiconductors.

Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML, gave a keynote address the first day, and industry figures including Paul de Bot, President of TSMC Europe; Rob Frijns, CTO (chief technology officer) and Vice President of Research & Development at NXP Semiconductors; and Paul Verhagen, CFO of ASM, gave keynote talks other days. A panel discussion on cooperation between universities, industries, and EU institutions was also held the first day. The moderator was Prof. Martijn Heck, from the Photonic Integration group of the university’s Electrical Engineering department, and the speakers were Dr. Julien Ryckaert from imec, Paul Verhagen, CFO of ASM, Elles Van De Ven, from the European Commission, and Vina Faramarzi, a Senior Researcher at ASML.