Interdisciplinary team learning in a semiconductor processing course

We describe a course in which the traditional `cookbook' approach to laboratory assignments is abandoned in favor of an attempt to experiment `without recipes'. In fact, we do use a `recipe' to fabricate electronic devices (PMOS transistors), but simultaneously, experiments in processing science are designed, implemented, and reported on by students. By creating a `start-up company' atmosphere, one where the `employees' (students) are responsible for their own `profits' (learning), a more cooperative environment has been created, where students learn more and strengthen many of the skills needed for industry in addition to gaining the knowledge content of semiconductor processing.