Adaptation of the Pedagogy in China Towards Innovation in Microelectronics

Abstract

The economical world needs constant innovation in order to develop new products. The field of microelectronics is particularly concerned with its very fast evolution in order to answer to the development of connecting objects that combine the strong improvement of the microelectronics technology and the applications to many domains. At the same time, the pedagogy in higher education moves progressively towards a numerical approach by involving more and more tools based on the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), internet sites, and simulation. The main challenge, today is to give to the students and future engineers, the methodology and the know-how that are not provided by the numerical tools in line, but also an innovative approach, with an improvement of the behavior of the educative structures and of the professorial body. The previous experience in China shows that basic education should change, on the one hand, in the learning of basic knowledge since the primary school by highlighting the understanding instead of the learning by heart, and on the other hand, by introducing practice and laboratory works, a way to develop the curiosity, the observation, the deep analysis, the links between many disciplines, the combination of several knowledge and the synthesis approach. However, the practice on technical platforms is very expensive and the sharing of this equipment between several institutions is necessary. The example of the French national network, CNFM (National Coordination for Education in Microelectronics and nanotechnologies) that pilots 12 national platforms, shows how to develop a high level practice with common platforms, and a policy deliberately focused on innovative practice on dedicated platforms. Several suggestions are given in order to improve the present China educational system and create a model which could be duplicated in many other countries.