Training & Education

The Penang Skills Development Centre, or more commonly known as the PSDC, ranks among the best training centres in Malaysia. Being the country’s first industry-led training centre, it is located within the Free Industrial Zones of Penang, Malaysia. The PSDC invites membership from the manufacturing industry and its tremendous success since 1989 is linked to the vitality of our corporate members who rank among some of the world's most admired corporations.

A joint effort of government, academia and industry, the PSDC is unquestionably unique.  Although initiated by the State Government through the Penang Development Corporation (PDC) and aided by academia, management expertise and administration is left to the industry.

The PSDC's mission is to pool resources amongst the 4 Free Trade Zones and 4 Industrial Estates in Penang with a total of 775 factories employing more than 170,000 workers, by providing up-to-date training and educational programs in support of operational requirements, as well as to keep abreast of technological progress.

Establishment of Micro-Electronics Centre of Excellence

To promote Penang as the destination of choice for E&E high value-add activities such as design and R&D, a strong pipeline of industry-relevant human capital is required. A Micro-Electronics Centre of Excellence will be established to fulfill this objective, focusing on undergraduate training as well as research.

The Centre will be located at Universiti Sains Malaysia and will be based on government-industry collaboration (i.e. public-private partnership). Industry input will be sought in designing the Centre’s curricula. Besides electronics, specializations will include mechanical engineering (including automation, precision robotics, micro- and nano-assembly systems), chemical engineering (e.g. gases and chemical delivery systems), materials sciences (packaging R&D) and supply-chain management.

At the same time, jointly-funded research is provided for, to encourage MNCs to locate their research projects or in-house centers of excellence.

Research Group in USM

1)   Collaborative Micro-Electronics Design Excellence Centre (CEDEC)

CEDEC is the result of collaboration between Malaysia’s 7 premier universities. The creation of the Centre is expected to spearhead concerted efforts towards creating more human resource focusing on microelectronic design. This is certainly much needed to complement already existing and established capabilities for fabrication, assembly, packaging and testing in Malaysia. CEDEC acts as an interface between the academic and industrial engineering worlds in the hope of enhancing teaching, research and industrial application through the use of shared facilities.

CEDEC focus on 4 major areas:

CEDEC is interested in doing the research as follows:

• Research related to MEMS characterization.
• Research on IC Design measurement.
• Research on high frequency measurement.

2)   AIDL Research Group

Auto-ID Laboratory (AIDL) started on January 2008 under School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. AIDL is a research and commercial oriented center where the main objective is to become a hub for research and commercialization activities locally and internationally. AIDL successfully produced 3 commercial products:

1. Gen2 Passive RFID
2. Contactless Active Integrated RFID (CAIRFID)
3. Radio Frequency Identification and Monitoring System (RFIDTM)

3)   Nano-Optoelectronics Research and Technology Laboratory (N.O.R)

Nano-Optoelectronics Research and Technology Laboratory (N.O.R) officially started its operation early January 2005. Its main research is on growth, characterization, modelling and designing, and fabrication of blue light emitting devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) using GaN and silicon based materials.

It is one of a small number of places in the world to have, in close proximity and on the same site, gallium nitride growth equipment such as Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE), extensive advanced simulation facilities, advanced structural characterization facilities, optical properties measuring systems, electrical properties measuring equipment, and advanced fabrication equipment.

Centers of Excellence

As part on Malaysia’s Third Industrial Master Plan (IMP3), the government is encouraging the establishment of Centers of Excellence. This is to promote the specialization of R & D activities among existing R & D centre among public universities and research institutes. The centers are: