NE 343Microfabrication and Thin-Film Technology

Units: 0.50
Faculty: Engineering
Subject: Nanotechnology Engineering

When it runs

Ran in 2 of the last 7 terms. Winter 2027: not on the schedule. Spring 2027: schedule not out yet.

Key processes for electronic device fabrication. Single crystal growth. Substrate preparation. Homoepitaxy, heteroepitaxy, and molecular-beam epitaxy. Ion implantation. Oxidation and diffusion. Physical and chemical vapor deposition. Sputtering and evaporation. Etching. Micromachining. Spin coating and printing. Photolithography. Effects of device scaling on chip performance. Process integration. Yield and reliability.

Prerequisites

Complete all of the following
- Must have completed the following:
  - NE121 - Chemical Principles (0.50)
  - NE125 - Introduction to Materials Science and Engineering (0.50)
  - NE242 - Semiconductor Physics and Devices (0.50)
- Students must be in level 3A
- Enrolled in H-Nanotechnology Engineering

Antirequisites

Not completed nor concurrently enrolled in any of the following:
- ECE433 - Fabrication Technologies for Micro and Nano Devices (0.50)

Leads to

Reviewed on UW Flow

75% liked it89% easy72% useful

From 28 ratings and 8 comments on UW Flow. The most helpful comments, quoted as written, without names. Read them all on UW Flow.

Memorization. The lab component is worth a lot and focuses on the final report (15% of total grade iirc). Assignments and learn quizzes are pretty easy to get 100 on. Midterm (20%) and Final (33%) were pretty fair. Taught by Sebastian Schulz.

Aug 2026 · liked itOn UW Flow Remove this
Ask an AI to generate infinite no of practice questions based on the lecture and it is fine. Every questions on exam is from the lecture(literally the same text) and you do not need to attend the lecture

May 2026 · liked itOn UW Flow Remove this
review notes, understand the main concepts. this tells you about the tools required for nano in industry, and it can be somewhat useful to understand vaguely how things work. basically a continuation of NE 226

Jul 2025 · liked itOn UW Flow Remove this
Took this online a couple years ago. Quizzes were straight from slides. Unfortunately, Prof Cui was very hard to understand so I gave up on watching the lectures. Good review of nanofab, but only really useful if you're pursuing semiconductors or MEMS. Really don't understand why this was a mandatory course in 3rd year.

Apr 2023 · didn’t like itOn UW Flow Remove this
You are paying for the 20 powerpoints that will be posted. skip class, work on your cheat sheet a few days prior to the assessments and ur chilling. top 5 most boring classes.

Aug 2022 · didn’t like itOn UW Flow Remove this

Discussed on r/uwaterloo

3 posts and comments in 2 threads mention NE 343, August 2017 to December 2024. Quoted word for word, newest first; each reply sits under the post and the comment that started its branch. Search r/uwaterloo for newer posts.

Spring 2019

Jul 30, 2019 Have you ever taken a class or had a prof where you're just real glad the term is over? 21 points, 17 comments

u/DailyDoseOfZinthos: “… Xiaosong Wang NE 343 Prof. Bo Cui BIOL 130 Prof. Heidi Engelhardt CHEM 120L Prof. …”

u/GankedByGoose: “… NE 343 is still Bo Cui. …”

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Spring 2017

Aug 16, 2017 What is the highest number of courses you can take per term? 2 points, 12 comments

“I heard recently that in engineering, there is no hard upper limit on how many courses you can take. Due to time limits/etc, what do you think is the theoretical maximum number of courses that would …”

u/ehhhk: “… In Nano, 3A, you are enrolled in 9 courses straight out: NE 301, NE 318, NE 320L, NE 333, NE 334, NE 343, NE 344, NE 350 and a CSE (Source). Granted, one of those is a seminar, one is a work term report, and one of them is a lab. …”