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Talent development is currently one of the top concerns of the semiconductor industry. Everyone seems to be asking: If we are to meet the soaring demand for semiconductors from both design complexity and manufacturing perspectives, will we have a future workforce needed to deliver?
In the last few weeks, we’ve heard this concern from several speakers. In his opening keynote at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) this month in San Francisco, Alberto Sangiovanni Vincentelli from the University of California at Berkeley said talent was the scarce resource of the future, noting, “Everyone and his brother wants to study AI. But we don’t have the people to design the chips to implement that AI.”
And this week, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), in partnership with Oxford Economics, released a study that suggests the U.S. faces a significant shortage of technicians, computer scientists and engineers—with a projected shortfall of 67,000 of these workers in the semiconductor industry by 2030 and a gap of 1.4 million such workers throughout the broader U.S. economy.
Separately, the SEMI Foundation predicts that an estimated 1 million positions globally will need to be filled in the semiconductor industry. The combination of strong worldwide demand and the re-shoring efforts in many regions driven by legislation supporting the building of new chip fabs presents challenges in terms of both hiring talent for current needs, and nurturing the workforce of the future with education programs at all levels.
Alliance to accelerate pathways to building talent pools
Given this backdrop, it’s timely that Arm yesterday launched a global initiative called the Semiconductor Education Alliance. Along with several partners from industry and academia, the alliance will encourage collaboration and build accelerated pathways to build and support future talent pools.
Initial launch partners from industry are Arduino, Cadence, STMicroelectronics (STMicro) and Synopsys.
Educational institutes include the All-India Council for Technical Education, Anglia Ruskin University, Cornell University, IIT Jodhpur, the University of Southampton and the Polytechnic University of Valencia.
Industry associations and government institutes involved at launch are the SIA, Semiconductor Research Consortium (SRC), Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute and U.K. Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF).
The idea is to bring together key stakeholders across industry, academia and government to address the growing challenges of both finding talent and upskilling the existing workforce. To ensure these challenges don’t hinder industry growth at this critical time, the alliance is urging anyone with contributions to make to the semiconductor skills pipeline to get involved.
In an interview with EE Times, Arm’s EVP of central engineering, Gary Campbell, and senior director of education and research, Khaled Benkrid, explained that a lot of good work in developing workforce is out there and has been going on for many years, but there’s scope for pulling all those resources together. The Semiconductor Education Alliance is global and is intended to leverage the work of others, to open access internationally and spread best practice.
They took pains to explain that, while Arm is leading the group, it’s an informal, federated alliance meant to be a collaborative effort.
Arm is particularly well placed to coordinate this effort because of the large ecosystem it already has in place, developed over many years. Anyone who has ever attended the annual Arm Partners meeting in Cambridge in the U.K., or Arm’s TechCon in Santa Clara, would understand the breadth of its reach into the semiconductor ecosystem.
The vexing skills gap issue is behind the timing of the alliance’s formation, Campbell said.
“You might ask, why now? And isn’t this work happening already? It’s true that many industry players have robust, high-quality educational programs that offer state of the art content, tools and services,” he said. “Indeed, Arm has a university program that reaches hundreds of thousands of students globally. But we believe the industry is at a tipping point when it comes to the skills gap, and more cohesive, industry-wide action is required to truly have an impact.”
Mismatch between higher education and industry needs
Benkrid commented in a related blog, “On the one hand, the number of graduates produced by higher education institutions (HEIs), like universities, has never been higher. But on the other hand, there remains a clear mismatch between the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) needed by the semiconductor and wider tech industries and what is being produced by these HEIs.”
Indeed this is something we have been hearing for a few years: In a report I co-produced in 2019 for the U.K.’s National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB), “Talent 2050: Skills and Education for the Future of Engineering”, one of the findings was that HEIs were not well aligned with the needs of industry.
From today’s Semiconductor Education Alliance perspective, Benkrid added that the global education system is unable to deal with this skills challenge as it is.
“Looking at software and system engineering, for instance, we know that the skills required will significantly change in the next five years, largely due to the rise of emerging technologies like AI,” he said. “This requires a greater understanding of the skills that are needed in the semiconductor industry, which can then be fed rapidly into what is taught at schools and HEIs. We also need greater flexibility across education systems and industry training programs worldwide to adapt learning programs and adopt these feedback and insights from industry KSA requirements.”
Giving all easier access to learning resources
Through the Semiconductor Education Alliance, Arm will play a vital coordination role, and community members are expected to share resources, capabilities and expertise in a flexible, federated and open model through a variety of forums.
This will give teachers, researchers, aspiring or practicing engineers, and learners easier access to critical resources and unlock new opportunities to collaborate on projects, such as joint bids for research grants.
Arm said several projects are already in the works, including:
- Arm and EDA partners are working on new VLSI design educational resources using state-of-the-art EDA tools and IP.
- New distance-learning solutions in computer engineering and informatics are being developed from Arm and partners in industry and academia.
- A global SoC design platform for academia with access to the latest semiconductor fabrication technologies from Arm and partners.
Ensuring diversity
Diversity will be a key element of the alliance’s programs, which involves supporting multiple routes into semiconductor careers, such as technical, vocational and self-study pathways.
The aim is to allow a broad range of diverse individuals to engage, regardless of their prior education or experience.
Members of the alliance will create new opportunities for learners to gain hands-on experience through internships, apprenticeships and co-op placements, as well as distance learning tracks on massive open online course (MOOC) platforms, where access is offered free to learners regardless of their financial means or geographic location.
Industry is eager to make this work
Some of the key partners provided their comments at launch.
Notable is Arduino, which already has a huge following in the 9–16-year-old space. Massimo Banzi, Arduino’s co-founder, chairman and CMO, said, “Arduino was founded on the belief in breaking down the barriers around the electronics landscape, so aligning the industry, leveraging shared resources and fostering communities of best practices is a natural fit for our education and engagement expertise. We are thrilled to join the outstanding leaders in the Semiconductor Education Alliance and help bridge the skills gap within the sector to ultimately accelerate individual opportunities, unlock new innovation and increase the growth of this vital industry.”
STMicro sees the alliance as vital as it engages in a broad range of collaborative activities with academia across the globe. John Rossi, VP for AME strategic marketing, said, “We’ve long emphasized the development of educational content with our university partners and by opening our professional development tools to everyone. Working with Arm and the other partners, the Semiconductor Education Alliance will give us all even greater visibility and resources to prepare students, makers and professional to meet the needs of tomorrow’s industry.”
Education, education, education
Given the number of times we’ve heard about the skills gap, it reminds me of a U.K. national election campaign in the 1990s, when the British prime minister in waiting, Tony Blair, declared in his manifesto that the top three priorities for his government were: education, education, education.
The current and predicted talent shortfall in the semiconductor industry suggests that education, education, education will be increasingly important for the industry, as it will strategically for regions and governments.
Initiatives like the Semiconductor Education Alliance can only help reinforce that, especially with chip manufacturing and re-shoring being prioritized by many leaders.
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