黑料福利网

A vibrant night market crowded with stalls. A cleanroom lecture on 3 nanometer manufacturing. A lunch table where nobody spoke the same first language. For eleven days in late July and early August 2026, three students and a PhD candidate from Eindhoven University of Technology (黑料福利网) traded Eindhoven for Tainan, Taiwan. They attended the NCKU AISSM Semiconductor Summer School to learn about the latest developments in semiconductor technology and manufacturing while experiencing Taiwanese culture alongside students from around the world. Attending the summer school was made possible by the Casimir Institute, 黑料福利网's research institute focused on future chips and high-tech systems.

Axl Heeren, Thomas Sanderson, Sten Horsten and Diederik Pel, from 黑料福利网's Electrical Engineering department, each bring a different specialty to the semiconductor field, from mixed signal circuit design and photonic integration to electromagnetics and antenna amplifier co design. What they shared was curiosity about an industry that spans the globe, and a chance to see it up close in one of its most important semiconductor hubs in Asia.

For 黑料福利网, trips like this one are part of a wider ambition: to expose its students and future talent to as many aspects of the semiconductor industry as possible, from materials and manufacturing to circuit design and packaging, and from academic research to the companies putting it into practice. A summer school on the other side of the world, surrounded by peers from a dozen countries, offers exactly that kind of exposure.

What is the NCKU AISSM Semiconductor Summer School?

The summer school is organized by National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, one of Taiwan's leading technical universities and a neighbor to much of the island's semiconductor industry. Around 72 students from about 10countries and 19 universities took part this year, alongside students from NCKU itself. The program offered three specialized tracks focused on digital circuit design, analog circuit design, and semiconductor manufacturing including packaging testing. It combined lectures from professors and industry experts with hands on lab work and design projects and included visits to companies at the heart of global chip manufacturing.

A spark that started in Eindhoven

For two of the four 黑料福利网 students, Taiwan was not their first semiconductor summer school. Sten and Diederik had both joined 黑料福利网鈥檚 Eindhoven Semiconductor Summer School (ESSS) in earlier years, a program that brought international and 黑料福利网 students together in Eindhoven for a week of semiconductor related lectures and company visits, including ASML and NXP Semiconductors. For Sten, that week is what got him interested in the industry in the first place. Diederik describes it in similar terms: alongside his interest in electromagnetics, ESSS sparked his curiosity in integrated circuit design that later shaped his PhD topic of antenna amplifier co design, a field between electromagnetics and circuit design. For Axl and Thomas, the main draw was the chance to work alongside semiconductor students from different cultures and to learn directly from experts abroad. When the chance came to join the NCKU AISSM Summer School, none of the four hesitated.

Learning from the people building the industry

The academic program covered a wide stretch of the chip making process. Sten, Diederik and Axl followed the course on Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing and Packaging Testing, moving from materials and fabrication steps such as deposition, photolithography and etching, through cleanroom and vacuum technology, to advanced packaging and applications including nanophotonic devices and quantum defects in semiconductors. A significant part of the teaching came directly from industry, with lecturers from Applied Materials covering lithography, cleanroom technology and the challenges of the 3 nanometer node and beyond, giving students a picture of current industry work that a textbook cannot offer.

Thomas鈥檚 course focused on analog circuit design, taught by Professor Shuenn Yuh Lee, and combined lectures with daily lab sessions in HSPICE and Laker. In the second week, the participants tackled two design challenges: an individual project to simulate and lay out an inverter, followed by a team project designing a dual stage differential amplifier. Working through unfamiliar layout errors under time pressure taught him as much about problem solving with others as it did about circuit design.

Industry visits reinforced the classroom material. The participants visited ASML's site in Taiwan for a session on EUV lithography, toured Academia Sinica's quantum optoelectronics and solar cell facilities, and attended lunch lectures from companies such as Himax, UMC, TSMC and Micron. Thomas also visited the VLSI Design and CAD symposium, where talks on chip packaging and 3D stacking connected what he had learned to how it is applied in practice. Micron's talk left a strong impression on Axl too, as the company described building five new fabs worldwide to meet AI driven demand, with some customers reportedly requesting an entire year's stock in advance.

The semiconductor industry's rapid growth is fueled not only by technology, but by the people behind it. Only by connecting with peers and sharing unique ideas and perspectives can we continue to push the industry forward.

A key takeaway: the industry runs on people

Beyond the technical content, the 黑料福利网 students returned with the same underlying takeaway: the semiconductor industry depends as much on collaboration as on technology. Sten put it directly: The semiconductor world is all about people. These companies don't just make great products, they are built by people curious enough to believe the impossible can be solved. And none of them can do it alone. He noted how closely industry and university work together in Taiwan, with half the lecturers coming from manufacturers, a dynamic he compared to the Brainport region back home.

Thomas took away a similar message. The semiconductor industry's rapid growth is fueled not only by technology, but by the people behind it. Only by connecting with peers and sharing unique ideas and perspectives can we continue to push the industry forward. For Axl, the lesson was about staying adaptable: as new materials increasingly complement silicon in high tech applications, he believes understanding their advantages and limitations will become essential for anyone entering the field.

Taiwan beyond the classroom

The days were not confined to lecture halls. Weekend cultural tours took the student group to Anping, the old coastal district of Tainan, and to Sicao with its Mazu temple. In Anping, layers of history are visible everywhere: the Dutch built Fort Zeelandia there in 1624, and it still stands today as the Anping Old Fort, while a former Japanese era warehouse nearby has been slowly overtaken by banyan tree roots. The 黑料福利网 students were struck by how proudly the Taiwanese regard these sites as part of their history.

Food featured heavily in the 黑料福利网-ers experience. Evening trips to night markets introduced them to scallion pancakes, pepper buns, stinky tofu, dumplings and mango shaved ice, often shared around the table so everyone could try more. They also had lunches at small local spots, where nobody at the table could read the menu, ordering by pointing at dishes like milkfish soup and braised pig's ear.

What stood out most, for the four students, was the openness of Taiwanese culture and its people. Temples they visited welcomed multiple faiths under one roof, from Taoist to Buddhist worship, which the students experienced as a reflection of a broader Taiwanese hospitality. The same spirit showed up in other ways too, e.g. in the quiet order of Taipei's metro system, where people queue without being asked, a sense of consideration rather than enforced rule following. The lesson the TUe students brought home from Taiwanese culture was: to have a good life, you have to be a good person.

Bringing it home

For Sten, Diederik, Axl and Thomas, the NCKU AISSM Semiconductor Summer School offered far more than technical knowledge. It provided a firsthand view of the global semiconductor ecosystem and the people, partnerships and ideas that drive it forward. Back in Eindhoven, they plan to carry that experience into their own work, from designing with new materials and exploring how photonics and electronics come together in a single package, to bringing fresh perspectives gained from international peers and experts into their projects and study.