In the last post I realized that the content is just the beginning, so here I will put the details on how the internship was.
Why Batam? As described in the last post, it wasn’t easy to get an internship that will match my study and my interest. Oh, and At that time I was a 3rd year Electrical Engineering student in ITB (..proudly ?). After some search and consideration, then I decided to take Polytechnic Batam in IC manufacturing lab as my internship place.
Actually, Batam had many electronics industries where electrical engineering student can hooked into, there was Schneider Electric, Infineon Technologies, and many else. Those are places which some of my friends took internship too. But why Polytechnic? At that time as a 3rd year student, I insist to be not as a robot, meaning I want to do some research, something that can be dynamically changed over time. Does it means working in big company like Schneider Electric, Infineon Technologies will make us to be a robot? The answer is no, but at that time, they’re not company that will do R&D, but they’re a production industry. There was no research, and usually they will take the engineer bachelor as its management team as in quality assurance, marketing, or any high level job. In case you insist to join the production line, then the job available is doing the quality control, and act as a robot. For me, doing job like that will be less technical yet it will develop your managerial skill and some problem solving regarding the industrial process and I’m not a person that will fit into that position.
After some thought, then I went to Polytechnic Batam which is located in Batam Center. This opportunities was created by some of Electrical Faculty teacher. There I worked as rat laboratory who was trained by some machine technicians coming from mostly China. I learned how to get a silicon wafer get into its package, it’s called downstream IC manufacturing process. Start from cutting (dicing), put the die into substrate (die bonding), wiring bonding, molding, electro plating, singulation and trimming. Long to short, I was apply what the technicians taught me on the machine, adjust some parameter to make it produce better and faster, and create the report.
As the city situation, at that time (2013), there was several Shopping Mall in Batam. Actually Batam is not the capital city of Kepri (Kepulauan Riau), but it much better than Tanjung Pandan that located in neighbouring island, Bintan. In case you need some movie or fastfood, they are available. The only problem living there is, mineral water and transportation. Back then, the public transportation is just Angkot and they’re quite pricy, but taxi is much much pricy than Angkot. So expect to live in under developed area (compared to Bandung, Jakarta, Bali). Mineral water also come to be an issue since the same brand will cost like 3 times higher (because there is no water springs/mountain there).
If you want to go to Singapore, just go, it will take only 40 minutes to get there, but keep in mind that there will be timezone different between Indonesia and Singapore. And last boat from Singapore back to Batam is around 8PM UTC+8, means you will arrive at Batam at 8PM UTC+7. What I mean is, your time in Singapore will be not so much. Bintan also can be one of your destination, it also very close and have more tourism place than Batam. Basically Batam is just an island with some industries and big port, so in term of economy, Batam should be better than Bintan.
Hopefully this article can help, there also a short story in the previous article. Thanks for reading!
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