Open Access

Sabine Merten, Thorsten Conrad, Klaus-Peter Kämper, Antoni Picard, Andreas Schütze

• Hands-on-training in high technology areas is usually limited due to the high cost for lab infrastructure and equipment. One specific example is the field of MEMS, where investment and upkeep of clean rooms with microtechnology equipment is either financed by production or R&D projects greatly reducing the availability for education purposes. For efficient hands-on-courses a MEMS training foundry, currently used jointly by six higher education institutions, was established at FH Kaiserslautern. In a typical one week course, students manufacture a micromachined pressure sensor including all lithography, thin film and packaging steps. This compact and yet complete program is only possible because participants learn to use the different complex machines in advance via a Virtual Training Lab (VTL). In this paper we present the concept of the MEMS training foundry and the VTL preparation together with results from a scientific evaluation of the VTL over the last three years.