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Title
Type
Topic
Description
Title
Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD)
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) grows ultrathin, conformal films one atomic monolayer at a time by alternating self-limiting surface reactions, enabling precise control of film thickness, composition, and uniformity on complex 3D structures. As a hard skill it requires selecting precursor chemistries and process temperatures, verifying growth per cycle with ellipsometry or X-ray reflectometry, and managing precursor handling and by-product removal in research or pilot reactors. Battery researchers apply ALD to deposit protective coatings on cathode particles and solid electrolytes, passivating surfaces that would otherwise react with liquid electrolytes and degrade cycle life.
Title
Basic Electrical Components
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Electrical
Description
Basic electrical components — resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transistors, fuses, relays — are the building blocks of every control board, sensor circuit, and instrumentation panel on a battery production line. As a hard skill it requires reading component markings and tolerances, calculating expected voltages and currents, and recognizing failure modes (burnt resistors, swollen caps) during troubleshooting. Technicians apply this knowledge daily on the line: identifying a blown fuse on a coater drive, spotting a leaking electrolytic cap on a BMS PCB, or sizing a pull-up resistor on a sensor signal line.
Title
Breadboarding
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Electrical
Description
Breadboarding is the practice of building solderless prototype circuits on a perforated board, used early in battery pack design to validate sensor wiring, BMS protection schemes, or charging controllers before committing to a PCB. As a hard skill it requires the discipline to organize component placement so the circuit is debuggable, to use proper grounding and decoupling on a breadboard's noisy power rails, and to translate a working breadboard into a manufacturable layout. Engineers apply it during BMS algorithm bring-up, when iterating an electrolyte-fill sensor circuit, or when testing a new cell-monitoring IC before committing to a board spin.
Title
Chemical/physical Vapor Deposition (CVD)
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
Chemical and physical vapor deposition (CVD and PVD) deposit thin solid films onto substrates from the gas phase — CVD through chemical reaction of precursor gases at the surface, and PVD through physical processes such as sputtering or evaporation. As a hard skill it requires selecting the deposition method and process parameters (pressure, temperature, power, gas flow) for the target material, verifying film thickness and composition post-deposition, and troubleshooting uniformity and adhesion issues. Battery researchers apply CVD and PVD to deposit electrode coatings, solid electrolyte films, and protective interlayers for next-generation cell architectures.
Title
Clean Room Procedures
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
Clean-room procedures govern how researchers and technicians enter, work in, and exit controlled environments where particulate contamination would compromise sensitive devices, materials, or measurements. As a hard skill it requires following gowning protocols, understanding ISO classification and monitoring requirements, and adapting experimental workflows to minimize contamination from tools, chemicals, and personnel. Battery and semiconductor researchers apply clean-room discipline when fabricating thin-film electrodes, depositing solid electrolytes, or assembling cells where a single particle can bridge electrodes and cause an internal short-circuit.
Title
Electricity & Electronic Circuits
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Electrical
Description
Electricity and electronic circuits — DC fundamentals, AC analysis, semiconductor behavior, analog and digital design — underpin every meaningful conversation about cells, packs, BMS hardware, and the equipment used to build them. As a hard skill it requires solid grasp of Ohm's law, Kirchhoff's laws, Thevenin/Norton equivalents, and the behavior of transistors, op-amps, and switching converters under battery-relevant loads. Engineers apply this when designing pack-level current shunts, when sizing pre-charge resistors for contactor circuits, and when analyzing why a sensor signal goes noisy under load.
Title
Etching & Deposition
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
Etching and deposition processes shape and build thin-film structures in semiconductor and battery research by selectively removing or adding material with nanometer-scale precision. As a hard skill it requires understanding wet-chemical and dry plasma etch chemistry, masking and resist techniques, and the process parameters governing deposition rate, step coverage, and film stress. Battery researchers apply etching to prepare cross-sections for analysis and to pattern electrode features, and deposition to fabricate thin-film cell stacks, protective coatings, and current collector layers in next-generation solid-state and micro-battery devices.
Title
Ion Implantation
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
Ion implantation introduces dopant atoms into a solid material by accelerating ions through an electric field and embedding them beneath the surface, enabling precise control of dopant concentration and depth profile. As a hard skill it requires selecting ion species, energy, and dose, modeling the implant range with tools such as SRIM, and planning post-implantation annealing to activate dopants and repair lattice damage. Battery researchers apply ion implantation to modify the surface chemistry and ionic conductivity of electrode materials and solid electrolytes, and to study radiation-damage effects in materials intended for nuclear or space applications.
Title
Lithography
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
Lithography — photolithography, nanoimprint, and electron-beam lithography — patterns features on substrates by exposing a radiation-sensitive resist through a mask or direct write, then developing and transferring the pattern into functional layers. As a hard skill it requires selecting the appropriate lithography technology for the resolution and throughput required, controlling exposure dose and development conditions, and troubleshooting defects such as undercutting, bridging, and adhesion failure. Battery researchers apply lithography to fabricate patterned thin-film micro-battery architectures, interdigitated current collectors, and reference electrodes for fundamental electrochemical studies requiring defined electrode geometry.
Title
Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Electrical
Description
Printed circuit board (PCB) design and manufacture is what turns BMS schematics, sensor circuits, and test fixtures into physical boards that survive the thermal, vibration, and electrical environment of a battery pack. As a hard skill it requires fluency in EDA tools (Altium, KiCad, Eagle), stackup design, controlled-impedance routing for high-speed lines, design-for-manufacturing rules (annular ring, copper-to-edge), and reading IPC-A-610 acceptance criteria. Hardware engineers apply this when laying out a new cell-monitoring board, when reviewing a vendor BMS PCB for thermal-derating headroom, and when triaging field failures back to a layout choice.
Title
Semiconductor Crystal Growth
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
Semiconductor crystal growth techniques — Czochralski pulling, Bridgman-Stockbarger, molecular beam epitaxy, and hydride vapor phase epitaxy — produce single-crystal and epitaxial semiconductor materials with controlled doping, crystallographic orientation, and defect density. As a hard skill it requires understanding phase diagrams and segregation coefficients, controlling thermal gradients and growth rates to minimize dislocations, and characterizing grown crystals with XRD, etch-pit counting, and Hall measurements. Battery researchers apply crystal growth techniques when producing model electrode or solid electrolyte single crystals for fundamental transport and interface studies that would be obscured by grain boundaries in polycrystalline samples.
Title
Soldering
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Electrical
Description
Soldering is the foundational join technique for electrical and electronic assemblies — used to attach components to PCBs, terminate sensor wires, repair instrumentation, and rework prototype BMS boards. As a hard skill it requires temperature and tip selection appropriate to the joint, wetting and dewetting recognition, and the IPC-A-610 visual standards for acceptable vs defective joints (through-hole, surface mount, BGA rework). Technicians apply it during prototype board bring-up, in-field repair of damaged sensor cables, and rework of small-quantity BMS boards where pulling a contract manufacturer in for a single rework would cost too much.
Title
Vacuum Pumps
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
Vacuum pumps — rotary vane, turbomolecular, scroll, cryogenic, and ion pumps — remove gas from a system to achieve the pressures required by electron microscopes, thin-film deposition equipment, and glove-box regeneration cycles. As a hard skill it requires selecting the pump type and staging for the target pressure range, performing routine maintenance such as oil changes, trap cleaning, and rotor inspection, and troubleshooting leaks with residual gas analyzers or helium leak detectors. Battery researchers rely on vacuum systems for SEM and TEM operation, ALD and sputter deposition, and electrolyte degassing, where inadequate vacuum allows residual gases to contaminate samples, degrade film quality, and generate background signals in analytical instruments.
Title
Verilog & VHDL
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Computational
Description
Verilog and VHDL are the hardware description languages used to design the FPGAs and ASICs that increasingly appear inside battery management systems — for high-speed cell-balancing, parallel cell-voltage sampling, and the real-time fault-detection logic that microcontrollers can't service fast enough. As a hard skill it requires fluency in synthesizable HDL subsets, testbench authoring, simulator workflows (ModelSim, Verilator, Vivado), and the timing-closure discipline that distinguishes hobby HDL from production silicon. Hardware engineers apply this when designing the FPGA front-end that samples 96 cells simultaneously on a pack controller, when prototyping an ASIC for next-generation BMS, and when implementing the safety-monitor logic that watchdogs the BMS microcontroller.
Title
X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS)
Type
Hard Skills
Topic
Research and Development
Description
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measures the kinetic energy of photoemitted electrons to determine elemental composition, oxidation state, and chemical environment within the top few nanometers of a sample. R&D scientists use it to characterize surfaces and interfaces in catalysts, semiconductors, coatings, and battery materials, with depth profiling enabled by sputtering. Strong practitioners balance ultra-high-vacuum sample handling, careful peak fitting, and charge-correction discipline to produce quantitatively credible results.
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