Influential Illini
ISSA
Labs and Landmarks
Programs and Partnerships
Industry
100

This Illinois electrical engineering graduate (B.S. 1947) demonstrated the first working integrated circuit in 1958 and won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Who is Jack Kilby?

100

ISSA is hosted by this Grainger Engineering department, abbreviated ECE.

What is Electrical and Computer Engineering?

100

This Dallas-based chipmaker's name is on the electronics design lab where incoming freshmen take ECE 110.

What is Texas Instruments?
100

In fall 2024, the Grainger College of Engineering launched a semiconductor engineering program of this academic type, requiring at least 16 credit hours.

What is a minor?

100

California's Silicon Valley takes its name from this element used to make most computer chips.

What is silicon?

200

Known as the father of the LED, this longtime Illinois professor of electrical engineering and physics died in Urbana in September 2022 at age 93.

Who is Nick Holonyak Jr.?

200

This Computer Engineering junior currently holds office of President for the Illinois Semiconductor Student Alliance.

Who is Abby Fong?

200

Dedicated on Oct. 14, 2004, this green space stretching from Engineering Hall to the Grainger Engineering Library honors Illinois's two-time Nobel Prize winner in physics.

What is Bardeen Quad?

200

Samsung's Semiconductor Technology Program, running from 2023 through 2027, supports this many scholars.

What is 50?

200

Workers in a chip fab wear full-body cleanroom suits nicknamed after this fluffy animal.

What is a bunny suit?

300

John Bardeen joined the Illinois faculty in 1951, four years after he helped complete this Bell Labs invention that earned him his first Nobel Prize in 1956.

What is the transistor?

300

ISSA will be hosting a speaker seminar with this semiconductor startup on Oct 29th.

What is Fab2?

300

Before the ECEB opened, the ECE department's home was this older building, whose space the new one nearly doubled.

What is Everitt Laboratory?

300

On Sept. 18, 2026, Grainger Engineering and this Indiana university signed an agreement to strengthen the U.S. semiconductor workforce together.

What is Purdue University?

300

This Dutch company makes the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines that leading chipmakers rely on.

What is ASML?

400

Nick Holonyak Jr., Bardeen's first graduate student, is called the father of this light source after building the first visible red version at General Electric.

What is the LED?

400

ISSA hosted a career talk earlier this semester with this Taiwan-based company, the world's largest dedicated chip foundry.

What is TSMC?

400

Holonyak started his Illinois research program in 1963 in this lab, abbreviated EERL, the precursor to today's Micro and Nanotechnology Lab.

What is the Electrical Engineering Research Laboratory?

400

In 2021, Grainger Engineering and this company nicknamed "Big Blue" launched a ten-year, $200 million Discovery Accelerator Institute.

What is IBM?

400

Introduced in 1994 as part of Intel's "Intel Inside" advertising, the famous "Intel bong" jingle has this many notes.

What is five?

500

Bardeen's second Nobel Prize, in 1972, was shared with Leon Cooper and J. Robert Schrieffer for a theory of this low-temperature phenomenon of zero electrical resistance.

What is superconductivity?

500

Created in early 2025, this body is the main governing organization for all chapters of the Semiconductor Student Alliance.

What is SSA Co?

500

The 235,000-square-foot ECEB cost about this much, paid half by the state and half by private and corporate donors.

What is $95 million?

500

The Semiconductor Engineering minor draws its courses from this many Grainger departments.

What is six?

500

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted that the number of components on a chip would keep doubling; this prediction now goes by this name.

What is Moore's Law?