Eligibility
Full-time University of Maine students enrolled in Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Physics, Chemistry, or Physics are eligible to apply for a UMaine Microelectronics Scholarship and the associated co-op positions. Students must be registered for a minimum of 15 credit hours of course work to receive a scholarship for that semester. Scholarships and co-op offers may be made as a package by a company. If a scholarship/co-op combination is awarded, the scholarship is awarded for the academic year following the co-op work experience. Students must be able to accept employment in the United States.
Students receiving the Microelectronics Scholarship in their junior and senior years are expected to complete a minimum of nine credit hours of technical electives related to microelectronics. These technical electives include courses in analog and digital design, integrated circuit design, microelectronic test, semiconductor device physics, electronic materials, and microfabrication.
All student scholarship/co-op recipients must re-apply from year to year. Initially, awards are made based on traditional academic promise. As students progress through the curriculum, demonstrated interest in the semiconductor industry and service to the profession also become important decision factors. In this regard, the MSC and the UMaine Pulp and Paper Foundation are similar – both are scholarship programs oriented toward an industry. Students applying for upper class scholarships should bear this in mind. It is a conflict of interest to hold both an MSC and a P&P Foundation upper class scholarship simultaneously.
“A significant factor in our success as a company has been due to the excellent engineers we have hired from UMaine who now comprise over 50% of our workforce. Our future growth will depend on continuing this trend and the intern program is an important part of that equation. Over 90% of the interns return to work for us full time!” – Maurice Richard, Director of Engineering, Tundra Semiconductor, South Portland, Maine