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United States Education Intel Hardware

How US Universities Hope to Build a New Semiconductor Workforce (ieee.org) 52

Posted by EditorDavid from the tomorrow-lands dept.
There's shortages of young semiconductor engineers around the world, reports IEEE Spectrum — partially explained by this quote from Intel's director of university research collaboration. "We hear from academics that we're losing EE students to software. But we also need the software. I think it's a totality of 'We need more students in STEM careers.'"

So after America's CHIPS and Science Act "aimed at kick-starting chip manufacturing in the United States," the article notes that universities must attempt bring the U.S. "the qualified workforce needed to run these plants and design the chips." The United States today manufactures just 12 percent of the world's chips, down from 37 percent in 1990, according to a September 2020 report by the Semiconductor Industry Association. Over those decades, experts say, semiconductor and hardware education has stagnated. But for the CHIPS Act to succeed, each fab will need hundreds of skilled engineers and technicians of all stripes, with training ranging from two-year associate degrees to Ph.D.s. Engineering schools in the United States are now racing to produce that talent... There were around 20,000 job openings in the semiconductor industry at the end of 2022, according to Peter Bermel, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Purdue University. "Even if there's limited growth in this field, you'd need a minimum of 50,000 more hires in the next five years. We need to ramp up our efforts really quickly...."

More than being a partner, Intel sees itself as a catalyst for upgrading the higher-education system to produce the workforce it needs, says the company's director of university research collaboration, Gabriela Cruz Thompson. One of the few semiconductor companies still producing most of its wafers in the United States, Intel is expanding its fabs in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon. Of the 7,000 jobs created as a result, about 70 percent will be for people with two-year degrees... Since COVID, however, Intel has struggled to find enough operators and technicians with two-year degrees to keep the foundries running. This makes community colleges a crucial piece of the microelectronics workforce puzzle, Thompson says. In Ohio, the company is giving most of its educational funds to technical and community colleges so they can add semiconductor-specific training to existing advanced manufacturing programs. Intel is also asking universities to provide hands-on clean-room experience to community college students.

Samsung and Silicon Labs in Austin are similarly investing in neighboring community colleges and technical schools via scholarships, summer internships, and mentorship programs.
Beyond the deserts of Arizona, chipmakers are eyeing the America's midwest, the article points out (with its "abundance of research universities and technical colleges.")
  • The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign offers an Advanced Systems Design class "which leads senior-year undergrads through every step of making an integrated circuit."

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How US Universities Hope to Build a New Semiconductor Workforce More

How US Universities Hope to Build a New Semiconductor Workforce

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  • Sounds just as stupid as "learn to code".

  • 2 years or more may be to long can we cut down on the filler / fluff classes and have it be more an trades program? also that will help with lower loans for the students.

    • The people who say college isn’t that expensive probably had a semester that cost the same as today’s required text books.

      • I can't understand why people don't just move to a different country and study there. The US isn't the only place with universities.

        • It isn't, but the dirty secret of the countries where college is free or essentially so is that they weed out the freshmen classes hard. U.S universities will let you try again (as long as the check cashes) but other countries where the student isn't paying will eliminate anyone who isn't able or willing to put in the effort.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kiore ( 734594 )

          I can't understand why people don't just move to a different country and study there.

          You first have to find a country that will allow you to move there, although if you are going as a student it's usually easier to get a student visa than a work visa ... as long as you are enrolled at an accredited tertiary institute

          Unless it's an English speaking country, you'll probably have to learn the language that education is conducted in there

          Very few countries offer free education to foreign students, so you'll need the cash to pay for your courses.

    • 2 years or more may be to long can we cut down on the filler / fluff classes

      Trade school. That's what you're thinking of. College/university is where you go to get a rounded education, something people in tech [hbr.org] and elsewhere [insidehighered.com] are looking for, and have been for some time [fastcompany.com].

      • No one wants adult children fresh out of adult-daycare/binge-drinking-camp. They're all entitled, lazy, and try to offset experience in others not by learning but by pushing political nonsense and driving the experienced people out. You might as well chug some arsenic, it's safer than hiring college grads these days.
        • Too much Flavr-Aide in your Faux Noise cup.
          • Are you suggesting they have the nerve to watch news that doesn't support your political biases? How obscene!

            It's a good thing you're here to mock them, otherwise people might realize your position can't be supported with rational arguments.

            • Faux noise, having confessed to publishing false data is not news and is nothing but bias.
              787 MILLION Dollars worth of bias
              You're a brainless toad.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yeah, we really need techno-people who can only converse with each other in techno-babble. I've run into your kind, get them outside their area of "expertise" and they fall flat on their faces.

    • Pull it off and you'll have handed all Engineering employment to trade school techs...who will make 52K / year tops.

    • "the filler / fluff classes"

      What filler/fluff classes?

      In my undergraduate curriculum for electrical engineering, there was exactly ONE free elective.

      • not just electives but also the forced non core classes.
        some still have the SWIM test that you need to pay for as well.

  • This made total sense last year. China is threatening actions that would bulldoze TSMC to the ground and there was chip crunch. Now there’s a glut because of various economic forces, and all we’re left with is the China issue. Is that enough? These companies know damn well that politicians have a 1-year attention span, while a chip fab is a decades-long investment. China might decide to leave Taiwan alone. BIG losses are very possible.

    I’ve seen so many initiatives like this fizzle out.

  • horseshit (Score:2, Interesting)

    by default luser ( 529332 )

    the problem with trying to distribute advanced engineering degrees is nearly impossible, because you really need talented faculty in a minimum number to entice students

    Who the hell want to move to a shithole like Ohio? Even schools in border states like Purdue are still undesirable to most students from the rest of the nation

    you have to have demand to maintain hot research faculty, which is essential for anything cutting-edge

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by evanh ( 627108 )

      According to an unreadable post.

      • No he's right, why the fuck would I want to live in Ohio? In fact, a large portion of the US is rather undesirable to live in unless you generally like snow for a decent part of the year. I'd rather live in the south (humid as fuck) then Ohio and adjacent states.

        For all the problems the west coast has, climate is still the reason to be here. As someone that's been in San Diego most my life, it's significantly better then Florida, Connecticut or Michigan, which I've also lived in. The North East gets white o

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          Chicago is also miserable in the winter time.

          To each his own, but I rather like winter in Chicago.

          Rather live in Arizona then any of the places I mentioned above . . .

          I've been in Phoenix many times during many seasons. It's really beautiful in the winter, but the summer is unbearable. And there's a severe shortage of water. So I wouldn't want to live there.

  • People as widgets (Score:3)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Sunday May 21, 2023 @02:12PM (#63539997)

    Intel sees itself as a catalyst for upgrading the higher-education system to produce the workforce it needs

    We really need to focus on the distinction between education and job training. The former encourages people to be independent thinkers who are meaningfully conversant with a wide variety of disciplines. The latter encourages specialization to the detriment of a well-rounded understanding of how the world works and how it ought to work.

    The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, and I fully realize the need for specialists in all fields. But to me what TFS describes is the use of public education to manipulate entire generations of citizens into being mere economic raw material to further the kleptocracy's ends.

    No Virginia, the corporatists are NOT Santa Claus. They are wolves in shepherds' clothing, looking to eat us all. Or perhaps more like the Borg, looking to assimilate us all. Either way, giving them the next generation of schoolkids to brainwash is madness.

    • I'd add back when I was going to school, when "Real men have fabs"; getting a career in semi-conductors was a consideration. Neat cutting-edge technologies that could sustain a lifetime of curiosity and career growth.

      Looking back at what the major players have done to the career opportunities, thank god I didn't.

      The way corps manipulate education policy (you don't think a good portion of the higher education debt is just fanciful choices made by feckless youth and not responses to corporate propaganda to fu

  • Make it easier for people from other countries to study for Master's degrees in STEM subjects and to get H1B, then green cards afterwards.

    Not only does the US get more talent in these fields, but it also drains the US's competitors of talent!

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday May 21, 2023 @02:34PM (#63540047)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Why, so our IoT can all spy on us and send telemetry back to their true owners. It's not about what the consumers want but what the corporations want. Been this way my entire life. Probably been this way my parents entire lives as well.

    • I worked in the industry myself for a few years, though it was long ago. Most of the work at these plants will be repetitive drone tasks, people learn how to operate the machinery and then its much like a factory job. Wearing a bunny suit all the time in a sterile environment with weird light isn't much fun either.

      There are some white collar techie jobs there also of course, but they are vastly in the minority.

  • US Universities do nothing of value because all US Universities suck.

  • Whatever the solution is, I hope that at least some thought will be directed towards creating more educational institutions as opposed to funneling money into existing ones. The last thing we should want to do is to exacerbate the student loan problem.

    • What?!!! Are you insane? How dare you talk bad about our educational industrial complex. We can't be just starting more universities to help drive down the cost of education. You better watch your back!

  • Quit fighting the last war (Score:3)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Sunday May 21, 2023 @05:58PM (#63540421)

    What American universities need to stop doing is essentially fighting the last war. STEM, though not so much the M part, have historically had trouble finding professors who aren't currently also working part time at companies that need worker bees instead of next generation engineers. I had to suffer through learning Ada only to find out that the real world wanted people who knew C/C++. But the professors all worked for cold-war era defense contractors and those companies needed replacements for their soon-to-be-retired workforce never mind that going to work for a defense contractor was akin to professional suicide.

    Beyond that, STEM programs need to stop teaching new languages. Better to teach them good design practices than the latest scripting language that some PhD invented for sh*ts and giggles because they have to publish. And the cherry on the top is to stop treating STEM education like strip mall martial arts where you spend years and a lot of money in classes that don't prepare you for the real world until you get to the graduate/black-belt level. Enough with the gatekeeping boring-as-hell classes and get down to the real stuff from day one. Teach kids in freshman year how to solder. Teach kids CAD. Teach them how the tools in the machine shop work and let them get their hands dirty. The machine shop shouldn't be a place where only the anointed get to go. They need to understand how to use the tools so they don't waste time designing things that either can't be manufactured or cost way too much to make. Oh, and business schools need to stop promoting service businesses and the subscription business model.

    • Teach kids in freshman year how to solder. Teach kids CAD. Teach them how the tools in the machine shop work and let them get their hands dirty. The machine shop shouldn't be a place where only the anointed get to go.

      Maybe a decade after I graduated high school, they converted the wood, electronic, and auto shops into some other sort of classrooms. Part of it was likely liability concerns - I know the kinds of things we did in wood shop, for example, so I can't totally blame them for that - but it's still appalling that today's kids don't even have a passing exposure to some of these skills. We have I guess you'd call them alternative schools for trades, but at 9th grade, how are you supposed to know what you want to

  • Efforts to educate more semiconductor engineers must prioritize diversity, inclusion, equity, and trans rights above all else, as these values are crucial for building a fair and equitable society. While optimizing chip yields and reducing manufacturing costs are important considerations, they should not supersede the fundamental principles of diversity and inclusion. Emphasizing these values fosters an environment that encourages different perspectives, experiences, and talents to thrive, ultimately drivin

    • Oh, and is there any actual science to back up your (entirely) theoretical assertion? Does the value of 2+2 change depending on the background of the person doing the calculation? Does a workforce that already includes everyone somehow not include everyone?

      And how about this - the assumption that the skin colors of an engineering or research team will impact their productivity is inherently racist! You're saying that skin color impacts character traits that are entirely unrelated to outward appearance

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