Every summer, k-Space hires student interns and gives them an opportunity to learn first-hand about the many great opportunities in metrology–which spans physics, engineering, computer programming, production, global shipping, and sales support.
Our interns are challenged, they are paid, and their contributions lead to finished products. We put their skills (and interests) to work and believe this benefits each of them in their professional ambitions. We also do this to support the STEM economy in our region.
This year’s interns focused on supporting our thin-film metrology tools for the compound semiconductor industry.
Andrew Gafford: a Mechanical Engineering major at Purdue University, where he is also in the marching band. Andrew led the effort to completely repackage the kSA multi-wafer rotation stage that is used with kSA BandiT for wafer temperature and wafer thickness measurements. This included designing and redesigning countless new and existing components in SolidWorks, 3D printing prototypes and final product components, and leading the effort to create the production BOM and assembly work instructions.
Sathish Sivakanthan: a Computing Engineering senior at the University of Michigan – Dearborn. Sathish made significant user interface and sustainability improvements to a k-Space software application that performs Fresnel Matrix Calculations to model and graph spectral reflectance and transmittance curves. Sathish also developed embedded control software for the primary controller of the kSA multi-wafer rotation stage, learning how to interface the CPU with the many types of electrical components that make up the system.
Caymen Cline: pursuing a BSE in Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan – Dearborn. Caymen has previously interned at k-Space. This summer, Caymen focused on the overall system design and the electrical design of the kSA multi-wafer rotation stage PCBA redesign. His work included developing its primary PCBA, selecting critical components like its display and stepper motor controller, wiring, and even writing some of the embedded control software.
Serious real-world contributions from all three resulting in a finished product.
For the final part of their internship, all three gave excellent presentations on their work and their internship experience to the company.
Great work, students!
