Progress towards developing a web-based virtual packaging laboratory

A key aspect of the student training process at the Packaging Research Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology is to provide students with hands-on "design, build, and operate" educational opportunities which reach beyond traditional classroom learning. The PRC is in the midst of developing a hands-on instructional laboratory that will provide students with exposure to basic packaging substrate fabrication concepts and techniques, including interconnect design, dielectric deposition, via formation, metallization, and testing. This paper presents a report on progress toward a plan to augment the hands-on packaging instructional laboratory with multimedia presentations and other advanced instructional support technology. The overall vision is to develop a virtual packaging laboratory in which a student can sit at a multimedia computer or workstation (equipped with the necessary audio, video and graphics capability) and follow a substrate through a simple processing sequence. To make this courseware remotely available for potential distance learning applications, it has been developed to be compatible with World-Wide Web access. This virtual packaging laboratory project received seed funding from the IEEE CPMT Society and the National Science Foundation based on a presentation at the 1998 ECTC.