NXP Semiconductors donates $7.7M in chips to U of A
The company’s gift gives electrical and computer engineering students hands-on experience with industry-grade hardware.
The University of Arizona’s Nano Fabrication Center, located in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, provides direct access to industry-level semiconductor manufacturing. The NXP donation reinforces student interest in the growing tech sector.
Kris Hanning, The University of Arizona, Office of Research and Partnerships
NXP Semiconductors donated computer technology valued at $7.7 million to the University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The gift includes nearly 75,000 circuits and motherboard components to supercharge the department’s teaching capabilities and give students more opportunities to hone technical skills.
“This gift accelerates the academic-to-industry pipeline and prepares students for global challenges in computer technology,” said Michael Wu, ECE department head and professor. “We want to thank NXP for this generous donation, which speaks to the company’s commitment to academic research and education.”
Liesl Folks, former vice president of semiconductor strategy at the U of A and ECE professor, facilitated the donation. College of Engineering faculty members Ali Akoglu, Tosiron Adegbija, Danella Zhao, Loukas Lazos, Soheil Salehi, Jerzy Rozenblit, Hao Xin and Janet Roveda played key roles in the process.
“This wonderful donation from NXP is going to more comprehensively prepare our students for their careers. It is a game changer,” said Roveda, the Litton Industries John M. Leonis Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Hands-on learning with industry insight
The chiplets, chipsets and analog-to-digital converters, which are essential building blocks for computer systems, arrived at the start of the spring 2026 semester. ECE faculty have been planning how best to incorporate the technology in their curriculum.
One teaching application uses the analog-to-digital converters to demonstrate how analog signals are transformed into 10-bit digital values. When smartphone users record their voices, for example, ADCs convert sound into digital files.
“In teaching traditional electrical engineering, this may be the first time that students have firsthand experience working with ADC chips and processes,” Roveda said. “They will get to see how the firmware works on the chiplets and how these signals are digitized.”
The donated technology will also be available for ECE capstone projects.
“We’re anticipating that the capstone students will have a lot of innovative ideas about how to put these components to work in their projects,” she said, adding, “Some of these components are sophisticated enough for graduate projects as well.”
Students could apply the components to their work in cybersecurity, flight control, agrotechnology and biomedicine, for example.
The donation provides experience with custom firmware, bolstering knowledge that goes beyond open-source firmware used in undergraduate courses.
“Everything on the industrial side of things is custom-created, not generic or off the shelf, which is typically what is available for student work,” Roveda said. “The technology we have thanks to NXP comes with custom firmware designed specifically for that board students can work with and learn from.”
Salehi, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and an expert in hardware and firmware security, said students will learn how to protect the entire signal chain.
"They aren't just building circuits,” he said. “They are building the first line of defense against hardware-level cyberattacks.”
