Cosmic Semiconductor Solutions
We are a highly innovative company with a strong R&D focus that creates products that "test what others can't".
Our Scholarships
Placement Location
Surrey Research Park, Guildford
Type of Placements Offered
• 12-month placements
Restrictions/Notes
(1) Students must be in the penultimate year of their degree; (2) Candidates should specify whether they are interested in roles within Test and Applications Engineering, or Assembly and Manufacturing; (3) Candidates must be able to demonstrate an interest in interest in electronics engineering and printed circuit board development.
Who we are and what we do
At Cosmic Semiconductor Solutions UK we design and manufacture electrical testers for the power semiconductor industry. Our customers create power conversion devices (or ‘chips’) which are used in the energy industry whenever power is converted from one for to another. Typical applications are in wind farms, solar panels, electric vehicles and phone/laptop chargers. Our customers make devices that make electricity more efficient, and we help them test and characterise those devices.
We are a highly innovative company with a strong R&D focus that creates products that “test what others can’t”. We take on the most difficult applications and from that we are grateful to have some of the biggest semiconductor manufactures in the world as our customers, many of who are billion dollar enterprises. Our testers run 24/7 every day of the year, testing and qualifying power chips for sale across the world.
We are based next to Surrey University on the Surrey Research Park where we do all our R&D work. We have a highly motivated and engaged workforce mostly comprised of electronic engineers and application specialists.
What you could be doing during your work placement
The Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) systems manufactured by Cosmic Equipment UK are highly complex electro-mechanical assemblies containing multiple precision PCBAs. These boards incorporate high-voltage and high-current circuitry, sensitive measurement front-ends, digital control logic and specialised test generators.
Students will have the possibility to work alongside one of our Senior Electronic Engineers and learn how test and validate the latest designs of our testers. This will involve hands-on work with PCBA and electronic measurement equipment. The engineer will have to work cross functionally with R&D and Applications to troubleshoot issues which arise. The work is varied and involves following test procedures while troubleshooting faults which appear.
By the end of their placement Scholars will have a well rounded experience in the workings of electronic circuits and testing of semiconductor devices.
Learn about:
- Electronic circuit theory and practical debugging techniques;
- Understanding of printed circuit board assembly processes and common manufacturing defects;
- Use advanced instrumentation (precision multimeters, oscilloscopes, signal sources) together with proprietary diagnostic software to isolate subtle or intermittent faults.
- Trace faults to root cause using schematics, layout information and systematic debugging methods (signal tracing, substitution, thermal imaging where appropriate).
- Correct faults, re-calibrate and verify performance against golden-sample or specification limits.
- Work on a wider variety of boards and increasing levels of complexity