By Maria Larson
Copy Editor

Metro State students studying cybersecurity, computer science, data, engineering and related fields can now apply to SCALE, a Purdue University-led program that connects eligible students with mentoring, technical training, research and career-development opportunities in microelectronics.

SCALE, short for Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement, is not an internship itself. Students must first be accepted into the program before mentor matching begins and before they can be considered for internship placements.

SCALE’s student resources include access to a job board where government and industry partners post internships, co-op positions and early-career opportunities. The program also lists academic-year and summer research opportunities, mentoring circles, technical training, professional-development activities, networking, senior-design projects and targeted scholarships.

Acceptance into SCALE does not guarantee an internship, research role, scholarship or job. Instead, the program is designed to help eligible students build technical experience, meet mentors and employers, and find pathways into a field that can be difficult to enter without professional networks.

Metro State is part of the SCALE consortium alongside the University of Minnesota and the University of St. Thomas. In 2025, Metro State hosted Dr. Peggy Williams, a senior scientist in the Strategic Microelectronics Division at Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane and the SCALE project lead, to discuss the program’s connection to trusted microelectronics and cybersecurity education.

But why is the federal government investing in a student program focused on microelectronics?

Semiconductors can sound like a specialized engineering topic far removed from everyday life. They are materials used to make the chips that process, store and transmit information inside phones, vehicles, medical equipment, communications networks, industrial machinery and artificial-intelligence data centers.

Those chips also support aerospace and national-defense systems. That is why the United States is investing not only in semiconductor manufacturing, but also in the people needed to design, test, operate and secure the technology.

Artificial intelligence has made the importance of chips especially visible. Training and running advanced AI models requires powerful processors, memory, networking equipment and other electronic components inside data centers.

Building new semiconductor factories is only part of the challenge. The United States also needs people who can design chips, manufacture them, test them, write software for systems that use them and protect those systems from security threats.

A 2026 national analysis projected that the U.S. semiconductor industry could need nearly 189,000 additional workers by 2030 and warned that tens of thousands of positions could remain unfilled without stronger education and training pipelines.

The issue also becomes a national-security concern when a country depends heavily on technology, materials or manufacturing capacity located elsewhere. A disruption in the semiconductor supply chain can affect companies, health care providers, transportation systems and government agencies that cannot quickly replace specialized electronic components.

SCALE is one response to that workforce problem.

Purdue describes SCALE as a defense-microelectronics workforce-development consortium led by the university and managed by Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division. Purdue said in May that SCALE had received more than $100 million in federal funding through fiscal year 2027. The university said the program included 1,175 students across 35 partner universities and more than 75 government and industry partners.

The program focuses on more than semiconductor fabrication. Purdue lists SCALE’s technical areas as compound semiconductors, heterogeneous integration and advanced packaging, system-on-chip design, radiation hardening and trusted artificial intelligence.

Semiconductors and microelectronics are closely connected, but they are not the same thing. Semiconductors are materials used to make chips and other electronic components. Microelectronics is the broader field around those systems, including chip design, manufacturing, testing, advanced packaging, embedded systems, software, data analysis and hardware security.

In other words, chip manufacturing is part of microelectronics, but it is not the entire field.

That means students do not need to plan a career in circuit design to have a role in microelectronics. SCALE lists computer science, cybersecurity, digital forensics, mathematics, statistics and informatics among its eligible fields, along with computer engineering, electrical engineering, manufacturing, materials science and other science and engineering majors.

For cybersecurity students, microelectronics can involve hardware security, embedded-device security and supply-chain risks. Computer science students may work with software used to design, simulate, test or operate hardware systems. Data science, statistics and informatics students may apply their skills to manufacturing analytics, reliability testing, quality control and engineering data.

Computer and electrical engineering students may work more directly with chip architecture, circuits and embedded systems, while manufacturing and materials-science students may focus on fabrication processes, advanced packaging and electronic materials.

Metro State has already connected its SCALE participation to cybersecurity education. The university said its work with the program includes coursework in microelectronics supply-chain security and hardware assurance, research in trusted microelectronics and plans for a Hardware Assurance Lab. Metro State said the lab would support work involving side-channel analysis, fault injection, firmware reverse engineering and secure-boot validation.

SCALE says applicants must be U.S. citizens, enrolled as undergraduate or graduate students and have at least a 2.8 GPA. The citizenship requirement reflects the program’s defense-related focus and certain Department of Defense-sponsored opportunities.

How to apply

Metro State students can apply through the current Purdue SCALE student application.

Applicants must upload a PDF of their unofficial transcript. A resume is optional.

Students must first be accepted into SCALE before mentor matching begins. Only approved SCALE students are eligible to be considered for internship placements.

Students with questions about the Minnesota SCALE program or the application process can contact Dr. Sena Houeto, Metro State’s Minnesota SCALE point of contact, at sena.houeto@metrostate.edu.

The future of semiconductors will not be determined only by factories or companies that manufacture the most advanced chips. It will also depend on whether students can see a place for themselves in the field before they graduate.

For Metro State students, SCALE offers one possible path into careers connected to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, communications, transportation, health care and national defense. The question is not whether every student should become a chip designer. It is whether students know that the technology underneath everyday life will need people who can build it, analyze it and keep it secure.