In its fifth year, the annual Royce Practical Cleanroom Skills course returns to its birthplace at the University of Leeds, supported by co-founders the University of Cambridge and Swansea University. The training takes place at the Bragg Centre for Materials Research, University of Leeds from Monday 18 – Friday 22 January 2027.
OVERVIEW
This training course will explore basic practices and techniques for working within nanotechnology cleanrooms. Delivered through a combination of taught lectures and practical hands-on training, and supported by world-leading research technical professionals, participants will gain fundamental skills for working in specialist fabrication facilities to produce operational semiconductor devices. Attendees on this course will gain theoretical and practical knowledge in a wide range of techniques including lithography, deposition, and etching, ultimately fabricating a field effect transistor.
This course is suited to both industrial and academic participants and will enable scientists and engineers from a range of disciplines to gain first-hand experience of cleanrooms and semiconductor device processing. The course will also be applicable to scientists and engineers using nanofabrication to develop, for example, spintronic or bioelectronic devices.
This exciting opportunity is a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Swansea and is supported by the Atoms to Devices theme at the Henry Royce Institute.
This course will cost:
• £250+VAT for academic/RTO attendees
• £1000+VAT for industry attendees
BACKGROUND
Micro- and nano-fabrication techniques in ultra-clean environments are fundamental to all semiconductor manufacturing and technology innovation. Processes such as lithography, thin-film deposition and etching of semiconductors, metals and dielectrics are used to build components such as field effect transistors, diodes and waveguides used to create complex devices such as memory, logic, solar cells, lasers, detectors, sensors, photonic chips and many more technologies key to modern life.
These ultra-clean advanced processing environments are called cleanrooms and the skills required to operate within them are very specific and in great demand across the industrial manufacturing and research and development sectors. The University of Leeds, the University of Cambridge and Swansea University have recently built state-of-the-art cleanrooms. These combined investments of hundreds of millions of pounds aim to develop the next generation of semiconductor technology to support the growing UK semiconductor industry, and provide a means to train the next-generation of skilled scientists, engineers and researchers needed to build a resilient, world-leading national workforce.
AUDIENCE
The course is an opportunity for industrial or academic scientists, engineers, and theoreticians enabling participants from a range of disciplines to gain first-hand experience of nanotechnology cleanrooms and semiconductor device processing. It is also applicable to scientists and engineers using nanofabrication to develop spintronic or bioelectronic devices.
The content is suitable for any new user of cleanrooms and those who are looking to pursue a career in semiconductors and related fields. Participants might include those undertaking a PhD or postdoctoral research, working in academia or within the semiconductor industry.
APPLICATION
The course is limited to 20 places. The closing date for applications is Friday 30th October 2026. Apply to attend here.
Selection will be based on participant’s written motivation for attending the course. We aim to balance the course participants to reflect a range of career stages, scientific backgrounds, and organisations including universities, research institutes and from industry.
If you have any questions about the course, please email royce@leeds.ac.uk.
January 22 2027
