Course Details
Microelectronics 101 for EW Professionals: A Quick But Thorough “Crash Course” | Pre-Convention Course
Course Dates: Monday, December 8, 2025 | 1 PM – 5 PM
Course Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center
Course Length: 4 hours total delivered across one session
Description: This is a survey course on the fundamentals of integrated circuit (IC) and semiconductor device physics, operating principles, and fabrication technology. Students will develop an understanding of all aspects of IC fabrication: the materials, the processes, and the fabrication equipment. The underlying physics that drive solid state devices and many of the fabrication requirements will also be covered qualitatively to foster understanding. This will include both theoretical and experimental considerations.
Who Should Attend: Anyone with an interest in understanding “how” and “why” microelectronics actually work and why they are essential to EW, with a focus on the physical hardware that still drives what the software code will have to work with.
Questions you may be asking that indicate you should attend:
- What are microelectronics, and why are they so important to tech and computer systems?
- How does what is happening physically in microelectronics affect what is happening virtually in software code?
- How are microelectronics affected through external intervention or internal flaws, and why?
- What exactly happens, and how can risk be minimized?
- What really matters to manufacturing microelectronics?
- What are the current and upcoming problems/challenges/vulnerabilities for microelectronics, and what are possible solutions?
Technical knowledge is helpful but not required: while there will be some mathematics discussed, it will be approached slowly and with explanation such that attendees will come away with an understanding/appreciation for the concepts expressed, even if unable to directly work with the math.
This workshop will be held before AOC 2025 at the Gaylord National.
Registration
Course Pricing
AOC Members - $550
Non-Members - $700
Not a member? Join now and save! AOC Members receive discounts on all courses, free access to all webinars and much more.
Instructor
Major Timothy Wolfe, PhD., graduated from Boston University in 2011 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and commissioned into the U.S. Air Force through AFROTC Detachment 355. He completed his M.S. in Electrical Engineer at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 2015. His career outside of academic research has included a variety of assignments ranging from technical intelligence analysis to program management. He has served as Principal Investigator, Pulsed Power Modeling Simulation for the Numerical Simulations Program and Deputy Program Manager, Aero Effects and Beam Control Program at the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate, Kirtland AFB, NM. In 2018, he was accepted into the Purdue Military Research Initiative on an AFIT scholarship, graduating with a PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2021. He has since served as an assistant professor of electrical engineering at AFIT, with teaching and research covering solid state microelectronics, RF antennas and propagation, and statistical analysis. He is now also serving as the division chief of electrical engineering in charge of curriculum and personnel management within the department.
