Interdisciplinary team learning in a semiconductor processing course

We describe a course in which the traditional “cookbook” approach to laboratory assignments is abandoned in favor of an attempt to experiment “without recipes”. In fact, we do use a “recipe” to fabricate electronic devices (PMOS transistors), but simultaneously, experiments in processing science are designed, implemented, and reported on by students. By creating a “start-up company“ atmosphere, one where the “employees” (students) are responsible for their own “profits” (learning), a more cooperative environment has been created, where students learn more and strengthen many of the skills needed for industry in addition to gaining the knowledge content of semiconductor processing