UT, Texas A&M students receive Samsung sponsored scholarships, fellowships

Dozens of students at University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University are able to focus on their engineering studies and expand upon their research thanks to the financial grants that Samsung Austin Semiconductor recently committed to these two schools. Last summer, Samsung Austin Semiconductor announced partnerships with both colleges in an effort to boost the talent pipeline needed for semiconductor manufacturing in Central Texas. Each school received $1 million in donations to their engineering schools to help fund scholarships, research grants, curriculum development and more. At UT Austin, Samsung Austin Semiconductor’s parent company, Samsung Electronics, also contributed an additional $2.7 million to focus on research and development. These contributions allow the schools to focus on three key areas:

• Undergraduate Student Support (Scholarships)
• Graduate Student Support (Fellowships)
• Student program/academic support (Capstone projects)

UT Austin Forty-one students enrolled at the university’s Cockrell School of Engineering received the 2023-2024 Samsung Scholarship. “I am extremely grateful to be able to receive this scholarship, and I hope I can use this opportunity to further enhance my knowledge and develop my engineering career path,” writes student Abdallah Mashal from Katy, Texas. Sarah Mobley is a junior in the Computer Engineering department where she’s chosen the Computer Architecture and Embedded Systems Technical core. “I will graduate in the spring of 2025, but in the meantime, I would love to learn how to utilize my education in a practical sense, by developing technology for a company like Samsung!” writes Mobley in a ‘thank you’ letter to Samsung Austin Semiconductor. An out-of-state student, who wishes not to be named, says the scholarship they’re receiving “plays a vital role” in helping them attend college. As an Electrical and Computer Engineering major, the student took advantage of the course offerings to learn more about semiconductor materials and VLSI. “I thoroughly enjoyed the courses since it was a sweet intersection of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering,” the student writes. “In the future, I wish to work on designing and fabricating integrated circuits and novel semiconductor devices for computing applications.” Another student, Sumin Kim, grew up interested in semiconductors because their dad worked in the industry. “I quite enjoyed the experience of making circuits [as part of an elementary school project] and being able to see it working. In addition, semiconductors nowadays are just part of our life. Nothing is made without an electrical system, so I chose this major to be part of this,” writes Kim.

Eight graduate students were recipients of the 2023-2024 Samsung Fellowship. One of the students, Samuel Bertelson, already has some experience with semiconductor manufacturing since he spent seven months in South Korea with Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology. “To be able to manufacture nanometer-scale features across millimeters of wafers at a high throughput is truly a great feat of science and engineering,” Bertelson writes. “As I continue my research, I will forever be grateful and indebted to you for your generosity.” Another fellowship recipient worked with us in 2023 as an etch equipment engineer. “My experience at Samsung Austin Semiconductor immersed me in the company's deeply held tradition of achieving excellence and pushing technological boundaries,” writes Pablo Vidal. “It was being in an environment of talented engineers and advanced technologies that motivated me to return to graduate school with the aspiration of researching and developing new innovations that maybe Samsung could then introduce into world markets.” Ellie W. is currently in their third year of the Ph.D. program where they’re focused on studying the growth of III-V semiconductors via molecular beam epitaxy for use in optoelectronic devices.” While at UT, I have been able to become a better researcher, both in the lab and while presenting my research at conferences, as well as explore Austin. After graduation, I plan to go into research in the semiconductor industry, and with this fellowship, I am one step closer to achieving my goal,” writes Ellie.

Texas A&M University In College Station, students who received the prestigious fellowship shared their excitement on LinkedIn. As part of Nazmus Saadat As-Saquib’s fellowship, they’ll be mentoring a group of undergrad students on a team project where they will be working on fabricating new generation memory devices for analog in-memory computers.

“This responsibility is both exciting and challenging,” says As-Saquib. “Also, thanks to Samsung Austin Semiconductor for providing this great opportunity to work along industry experts.” Jitendra Choudhary, a Chemical Engineer working on their PhD, looks forward to working with us and mentoring undergraduate students and “contributing to the semiconductor community.” Along with scholarships and fellowships, the capstone element of our grant funding is one of the ways we’re working with the schools to develop the talent pipeline. Derek Grant, a Texas A&M alumnus and senior manager on our Infra Electrical team, is providing his expertise on these capstone projects. For the 2023-2024 year, Samsung Austin Semiconductor is sponsoring five projects through the capstone program. “The capstone program and the directly related funding of sponsorships for Project Showcase help more students to realize that Samsung Austin Semiconductor is an option,” explains Grant. “Many of these students are interested in or have already interned in the semiconductor industry and we get the chance to help them become semiconductor professionals that will one day be high-performing Samsung employees.” During the process of sponsoring and mentoring these capstone students, each department works with the students to:

• Review and approve draft and final concept of operations documents to ensure the students understand the project and the scope and deliverables are clear
• Attend regular meetings to provide guidance and monitor the progress of the project
• Review and approve mid-year (end of the first semester) and final (end of the second semester) reports

After the two semesters, students are graded on the final result and the projects are submitted to the Texas A&M Engineering Project Showcase in April, where Samsung Austin Semiconductor employees regularly help judge. “The judging does not affect the final grade, but is important to the function of the capstone program and provides feedback to students as they leave academia and enter the workplace regarding how they performed within a team,” adds Grant.

Luckily for the students, Grant has a great track record of mentoring students to success. Last year, the Infrastructure Technology team at Samsung Austin Semiconductor funded its first capstone project which took home first place in the Electrical Engineering category. Other project mentors, including Terry Ault, Sam Tehven and Paul Durham, along with IT Strategy's Mike Martinez, provided support for the students in different elements of the project. These Aggie alumni found the program to be a rewarding way to give back and inspire the young students. “In this project, students developed a new product which required them to create application-specific hardware and also develop back-end data management that would interface with wireless network infrastructure,” explains Grant. Mentoring ambitious and talented engineering students on these projects allows us to boost student participation and aids in attracting and retaining a skilled and talented workforce. Texas A&M’s Engineering Project Showcase on April 26, 2024 will feature more than 1,250 students representing 277 engineering capstone design teams from all engineering departments. Samsung Austin Semiconductor is proud to be a Platinum sponsor of this event.