UNIVERSITY & RESEARCH FAB SOLUTIONS

University fabs use ToolTrack for two reasons. The first: government-funded R&D programs running compound semiconductor development alongside industry partners that need a full operational backbone (WIP tracking, equipment management, document control, and quality management) in one system. The second: engineering programs where students manage real lots through a real MES, learning manufacturing operations the way they’ll encounter them on day one. Both need a production-grade system without the enterprise price tag or per-seat fees.

Some university fabs are production operations in all but name: real processes, federal funding, and industry partners with IP agreements. Programs focused on compound semiconductors, silicon carbide, and other advanced materials function like start-up fabs: multiple PIs, visiting engineers from partner companies, rotating grad researchers, and a process portfolio spanning specialized equipment. The compliance requirements that come with federal funding make the operational needs essentially identical to those of a commercial fab.

ToolTrack is built for this environment. Equipment qualification records, controlled process documentation, nonconformance tracking, and WIP genealogy across concurrent partner lots are all in the same system the team uses daily. Unlimited user licensing means faculty, grad students, post-docs, and visiting industry engineers are all in the system without seat negotiations or cost spikes when a new partner joins. And because ToolTrack is cloud-hosted, industry collaborators get role-appropriate data access without on-site IT infrastructure.

The semiconductor industry’s workforce gap is not just a headcount problem. Companies struggle to find engineers who already understand how a manufacturing operation works: how lots move through a process flow, how SPC excursions get escalated, how the MES ties it together. Teaching that on the job takes months and pulls experienced engineers away from production.

RIT addressed this by deploying ToolTrack in their student-operated sub-micron CMOS cleanroom — a 12-mask, 116-step process flow running twelve 6-wafer lots on a real factory floor. Students don’t just run the process. They run the operation. They monitor WIP from the manufacturing manager’s dashboard, respond to SPC violations, act on excursions, and track equipment qualification, the same way a process engineer does in production. A graduate who has done that walks in on day one already knowing what an MES is.

CRS provides ToolTrack to university programs at education pricing. Universities that build real manufacturing operations into their curriculum produce more valuable graduates, and we think that’s worth supporting.