Teaching MEMS Curriculum in Electrical Engineering Graduate Program

Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) refer to devices and systems in the size range of 1 micron (1 micron=10 -6 m) to 1000 microns.Due to their small size, MEMS technology has the advantages of low weight, low cost, low power consumption and high resolution.MEMS have found broad applications in automobile, inertial navigation, light display, optical and RF communications, biomedicine, etc. World's MEMS market is growing rapidly each year.To meet the strong market demands on MEMS engineers and researchers, we developed MEMS curriculum in our master program in School of Engineering since Fall 2005.In this paper, we shared our experience in teaching the MEMS curriculum in master program of Electrical Engineering department.Three core courses have been developed for MEMS curriculum.The course description, goals, prerequisites, as well as the topics covered in these courses are discussed.Multimedia technology is used in the teaching to enhance the teaching results.Several MEMS course projects using ANSYS simulation are designed to help student accumulate experience in MEMS device design and simulation.Students are fascinated by the MEMS field and continue their master project/thesis research in MEMS.The MEMS curriculum attracted tremendous interest among students, and the students' feedback on the course have been excellent.This is part of our efforts to prepare students for the future need of economy revival.