IIT Guwahati team wins Lam Research Challenge in chip engineering

A student team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati has won the third edition of the Lam Research Challenge, an industry-run semiconductor systems engineering competition, beating teams from across the country.

IIT Ropar finished second and NIT Calicut third. The results were announced at the grand finale at PES University in Bengaluru, held on November 5 and 6.

The winning team

The IIT Guwahati team was made up of Suhani Maheswari (Electronics and Communication Engineering), Aakash Kumar Meena (Mechanical Engineering), and Shrut Jain and Kummari Premaja (Electrical and Electronics Engineering).

The top teams share prize money of Rs 10 lakh, and some of the participants will be offered internships with Lam Research, a US-based maker of wafer fabrication equipment used in chip manufacturing.

How big the contest was

More than 3,000 students in 803 four-member teams from 189 colleges in 23 states and four Union Territories entered this year. After a three-month process with qualification and hardware-build rounds, 25 teams from 20 colleges, including 10 IITs, two NITs and two BITS campuses, reached the finale.

What the teams had to build

Finalists had to build a tabletop "paint factory" that automatically mixes three base colours into three litres of a target shade, matching a reference sample on the first attempt. Since paint could be added but not removed, accurate dosing was critical. On the second day, the whole process, including pipeline flushing, tank cooling and colour dosing, had to run from a single button press.

In the final round, teams took on harder technical problems that required them to combine hardware, software, automation, data science, process engineering and advanced controls.

Why systems engineering

The organisers said the contest is meant to test systems-level thinking rather than skill in a single discipline. Modern chip factories rely on many technologies working together, and the industry needs engineers who understand how those pieces interact. Entries were judged on innovation, technical execution, teamwork, problem-solving and performance under pressure.

Rangesh Raghavan, corporate vice-president and managing director of Lam Research India, said the challenge was designed to help students build these capabilities and get exposure to the kinds of engineering problems the industry faces.

Part of a wider skilling push

The competition is one of several Lam Research programmes aimed at building India's semiconductor workforce. The company says its Semiverse Solutions platform is being rolled out with the India Semiconductor Mission and the Indian Institute of Science, with a goal of training up to 60,000 engineers over the next decade. It also runs a 240-hour advanced manufacturing course with training, certification and placement support for entry-level factory jobs.

For IIT Guwahati, the win adds to the institute's growing profile in electronics and semiconductor research in the North East.