Microfabrication Engineers

The origins of microfabrication can be traced to the early 1950s, when the invention of microelectronics—integrated circuits and products using integrated circuits—allowed scientists and engineers to design faster and smaller electronic devices. Integrated circuits were initially developed for use in military equipment and space technology, but technological advances in the last 25 years have led to their incorporation into everyday products such as smartphones, MP3 and MP4 players, and nearly every electronic product that people use today.

Electronics is just one application area for microfabrication. As microfabrication techniques have improved, scientists and engineers have been able to build increasingly more complex, yet smaller, microfabricated, or microelectromechanical, systems. Advances in microbiology, the mapping of the human genome, and the development of nanoscience/nanoengineering and other scientific breakthroughs have created opportunities for microfabrication in many other industries, including medicine, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, automotives, and telecommunications. The growing sophistication of microfabrication techniques and the ever-expanding applications of microelectromechanical systems have created a corresponding demand for specially trained engineers.