A US semiconductor industry in crisis needs a workforce that doesn’t yet exist – Computerworld

“It’s starting to get gusty,” he said.

ACC is one of the schools NIICA is now collaborating with on training and apprenticeships.

“We have a population that’s unskilled,” Marmolejo said. “There just aren’t a lot of people in the [US] semiconductor industry. Community colleges are really well suited to fill that gap and develop this workforce.

“Five years ago, nobody did apprenticeships,” Marmolejo continued. “Now we have four companies doing apprenticeships this fall. It motivates students to complete their credentials once they’re engaged.”

ACC isn’t trying to compete with the big technical schools such as Texas A&M, Marmolejo said. Community colleges simply don’t have the resources for that. Instead, ACC is focused on entry-level job training in applied technology and manufacturing — skills needed to attain a job as a machine operator or chip assembler.

“There’s a lot of people who need a job first,” Marmolejo said. “I tell students it’s not about starting pay. On average, it’s about $20 an hour, but the growth potential is huge. I have people who come into my program and say, ‘I’ve only gotten a one-dollar a year wage increase in my current job.’ That’s not going to happen in manufacturing. You can see $5 or $6 wage increases by end of year. It’s all performance based.

Dropping out of the funnel

In addition to the lack of semiconductor training programs is another issue: high attrition rates. University students who join engineering programs often change majors before they graduate, the engineers who do graduate often don’t enter engineering jobs — and those who get engineering jobs don’t choose semiconductors.

The state of Oregon, which has tracked semiconductor programs closer than any other state, found that only 8% to 12% of students who graduate from programs go on to work in engineering. “If I look at all undergraduate and graduate degrees awarded, roughly 3.7% of those are what they call core semiconductor degrees,” McKinsey & Co’s Roundtree said. “That’s defined as engineering technician and precision production roles. Of all the courses that people take in the state of Oregon, fewer than 4% are in those core semiconductor roles.

“If we’re facing an engineering shortage, that’s certainly one lever you could pull to get more engineers into the workforce,” Roundtree said. “You lose folks in huge swaths at every step of the funnel.”

More than 60% of executives in a semiconductor industry survey acknowledge it has an image problem in terms of making it an attractive career choice. Semiconductor fabs and development facilities evoke images of workers in white coveralls, filtration masks and cleanrooms where humidity, temperature and pressure conditions must constantly be maintained.

“Folks look at that cleanroom suit, and if I’m trying to choose between stocking shelves at Wal-Mart or putting on a cleanroom suit and moving boxes of wafers around a fab, well, if I’m only getting paid $2 more an hour to move the boxes of wafers around, maybe that’s not something I want to do,” said Bill Wiseman, senior partner and global co-leader of McKinsey & Co’s semiconductors practice.

Said Roundtree: “It’s something that in the US they haven’t had to face for a while, because we’ve not been building a lot of these cutting-edge fabs until now.”

Making the chip industry look cool

In some ways, the semiconductor industry is competing with the Googles and the Metas of the world to attract talent, and those companies can offer remote work — something manufacturing cannot do, said Isaac Hagen, senior vice president of vertical industry development at staffing firm ManpowerGroup.

“The challenging thing these days is making the semiconductor industry look cool,” Hagen said. “The talent largely does not exist. So, there is a need for upskilling, reskilling and what we refer to pre-skilling — so, getting people the skills they need before they even get into the job hunt.”

Most young people simply don’t consider that virtually everything they touch today is powered by a semiconductor chip. “When you start to talk to people about the industry, they realize that it powers the world,” Hagen said.

Peter Bermel, a professor of computer engineering at Purdue University, said one reason students avoid semiconductor engineering degrees is because they have a reputation of being “very hard,” especially in terms of mathematical requirements. “In general, that’s been a huge barrier — to keep people on the path,” Bermel said.

In 2020, Purdue University launched a Department of Defense-funded program called SCALE (Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement); its aim is to train up a semiconductor workforce for the defense sector. Seventy-five percent of SCALE graduates remain in the semiconductor field, according to Bermel, who said the program is more attractive than others because it feels more purposeful.

“Since SCALE, things have changed quite a bit,” Bermel said. “We have more students staying in the program. We’ve been tracking our drop-out rate and it’s been about 4%. The students who join SCALE are highly motivated and find a lot of good opportunities to do things that are exciting.”

Cole Lush, a senior undergraduate student at Purdue in SCALE’s aerospace program, currently helps manufacture chips for updating older US ballistic missiles; it’s a job he got after his father, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel who worked with defense and data systems, urged him to pursue it.

“For a long time, I wanted to be an astrophysicist because space was my passion,” Lush said, “but then I realized I wanted to work on the systems that go into space. So, I focused more on engineering. Once I got involved with SCALE, I learned more about current events and the opportunities through SCALE.”

As a part of that SCALE, Lush was offered a summer intern program and hired by GRC Integrated Systems, a small consulting firm that works with the US Naval Surface Warfare Centers. During his internship, Lush worked on a project updating the internal electronics in older submarine-launchable ballistic missiles to extend their lifecycle.

“Part of the reason they hired me is because they saw SCALE on my resume at a career fair. Within a month, they told me, ‘you’re in,’” Lush said.

Updating US ballistic missiles is but one of many examples SCALE can offer students through its semiconductor education program. “All the defense systems, and obviously a huge number of commercial systems, are dependent on semiconductors,” Bermel said. “Having students who understand how things work on the inside is vital to preserve and extend these systems and create new and better systems.

NIICA’s Nagel said the bottom line should be that “opportunity is the sexiest part” of the semiconductor field. “A lot of companies are paying off student loans for employees,” Nagel said. “Through tuition reimbursement, you can work your way into engineering or management jobs without college debt.”

Imposter syndrome and the fear of math and sciences

In the past, entry-level positions in the semiconductor industry were rarely noticed by job seekers outside the industry. That changed as would-be workers saw new opportunities for training and advancement.

But new employees who’ve never worked in the semiconductor field can get “imposter syndrome” working in high-tech jobs that often require math and science backgrounds. “I encourage them to not get overwhelmed,” said Joe Rondino, a cleanroom operations manager for NY CREATES. “I tell them to trust the training programs we have and the mentors you’re given. As long as they’re hard workers, opportunities will present themselves. Math isn’t even required for a lot of the jobs.”

Rondino himself had been working in customer service at a large electronics retailer 11 years ago when he decided to change careers and attended a job fair. He was offered an entry-level job as a cleanroom operator working nights at NY CREATES; over time, he moved to a daytime shift and advanced as opportunities arose. He now manages 13 employees, and mentors apprentices.

What’s important is soft skills — the desire and ability to learn, and be a reliable and hard worker, Rondino said.

Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) in Troy, NY first collaborated with NIICA when chipmaker GlobalFoundries (GF) initiated an Industrial Maintenance Technician Apprenticeship program. To carry out the program, GF conducts on-the-job training of approximately 2,000 hours per year, while the college partners with GF for the required related instruction. The college began conversations with NY CREATES in the spring of 2024 to explore another apprenticeship program partnership within the semiconductor industry

Through a partnership with HVCC, NY CREATES operates an apprenticeship program that lets people get hands-on training while also taking in courses at the college to advance in their careers.

One of Rondino’s apprentices, 27-year-old Kyle Huffer, has been with NY CREATES for eight months. With only a high school diploma, Huffer learned about the semiconductor R&D firm through a relative who also works there.

Huffer was intrigued. “He described it to me, and it sounded very interesting and a lot more mentally stimulating [than] what I was doing before,” said Huffer, who’d been detailing cars at the time.

Huffer works as a clean room operator in a control center, where silicon wafers — thin discs of semiconductor material used to create microchips — are loaded into and out of machines that process them.

Huffer loads plastic containers known as Front Opening Unified Pods, or FOUPs, that are filled with wafers and transfers them safely between machines as they’re processed.

“I wouldn’t say it’s challenging, but it’s definitely enjoyable and mentally stimulating,” said Huffer. “This field is booming. Technology is the future. So there’s plenty of room for advancement. We’re only going to get more technologically advanced and what we do contributes to that.”

Lea Montana, another cleanroom operator, runs machinery that processes the silicon wafers. A part of the apprenticeship program, she’s been working at NY CREATES for four years and hopes to become a certified engineering technician.

Montana had been working as a home healthcare aid in her 20s when her stepfather told her about his job at NY CREATES and the scientific aspect of the work interested her. She’s since obtained an associate’s degree in applied science, and is now training another employee on cleanroom work.

“It’s a really exciting job and there’s always something new to learn,” she said. “If you want to continue to learn and grow in a career, this is great. And there are a lot of other job opportunities you can move into on site.”

For Indium’s McDaniel, working in the semiconductor industry has provided something he’d never had before — a stable career. He and his wife recently purchased a house and he was also able to buy a newer car.

McDaniel credits his newfound career with being able to go to school while also working 40 to 50 hours a week, “and I didn’t feel like I was short-changing myself or the family I was starting to build. I’m at a point in my transition that I can pass [for a man] very well; it’s not something I’m concerned about. …The people around me here see me for my work ethic — they don’t just see me.”

HVCC’s apprenticeship program began in late 2021 and had 42 apprentices in the first year. Currently, HVCC has over 70 active apprentices with 20 employed in the semiconductor industry. The college has approximately 500 students in credit-bearing programs to prepare students for jobs in the semiconductor manufacturing workforce.

Needed now: a ‘Top Gun‘ moment

Because a semiconductor fab plant takes anywhere from three to five years to build and get online, and most of the projects didn’t break ground until 2022, the industry won’t see a boom in hiring until late this year through 2026, according to Hagen. But even by then, the workforce needed to staff those facilities will be far from ready.

TSMC, which is spending $40 billion to build a new plant and expand another in Phoenix, earlier this year announced further completion delays. Previously, the company planned for a 2026 opening; it now expects to go online in 2027 or 2028. TSMC makes 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, supplying them to companies like Apple and Nvidia.

Those kinds of delays could, ironically, give the industry a little more breathing room to find and train all of the workers who’ll be needed to staff them. But skills shortages are still likely.

“We kind of need a ‘Top Gun‘ moment,” Wiseman said. “Top Gun came out in 1986, and everybody wanted to become a naval aviator all of a sudden. Before that, most people didn’t even know the Navy had planes, let alone wanting to go join the Navy to fly them. That’s the kind of moment we need in the semiconductor industry.”