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The semiconductor industry – recognizing its own fabs can do much more to reduce their carbon footprint – is in a position to help turn the tide on rising temperatures worldwide and more chip companies are launching sustainability initiatives to contribute to the cause.

Shari Liss, executive director of the SEMI Foundation, is determined to help more people discover careers in the microelectronics industry. As a woman and longtime leader in both education and tech, she has a keen understanding of how chip industry jobs are often not visible or accessible to many people. To address this, she is spearheading the SEMI Foundation’s Industry Image and Awareness Campaign. I asked Shari to tell me about herself, her passion for this work, and this important campaign.Williams: When did you join SEMI? What were you doing before? What is your background?Liss: I joined the SEMI Foundation as executive director in September of 2019. I came to SEMI from Ignited, where as CEO I recruited, trained, and placed more than 400 educators in summer fellowships at top companies for transformative professional development that grew the Bay Area’s STEM talent pool and workforce pipelines. I'm an educator, a math geek, a mom, a musician, and a passionate advocate for a stronger, more diverse workforce.Williams: What is the Industry Image and Awareness Campaign?Liss: The Industry Image and Awareness Campaign, which SEMI has been running for several years, aims to dramatically increase awareness of the huge breadth of careers in the microelectronics industry and build its talent pipeline. The current campaign includes national media exposure and education that highlights careers in the U.S. microelectronics industry. It has two main components: a PBS documentary about our industry that will reach up to 60 million households, and an interactive website that will walk visitors through STEM career pathways and provide resources that increase industry awareness and interest, particularly among women, veterans and people of color. Integrated with SEMI’s Global Workforce Development Initiative, the website will help connect prospective talent to job openings while also focusing on the industry’s long-term workforce needs. The platform will function as a seamless point of contact, supporting recruiting and retention for employers while also serving those in need of upskilling or reskilling. It will target current industry workers as well as prospective employees, including students, veterans, and workers in other occupations.The two components will be integrated, with video content from the documentary series embedded on the website to provide inspiring stories from people already working in the industry.Williams: Why is this campaign important? What problem is it trying to solve in our industry?Liss: Currently, SEMI member companies have tens of thousands of open positions. These can only be filled if we aggressively and purposely attack the talent gaps. When we talk with students, soldiers and other diverse communities, they have little awareness of the kind of work there is in microelectronics, the jobs that await them, and the industry itself. Our industry generally does not have the same name recognition or understanding as social media or software companies, and many potential workers don't know about us.Students understand what’s on their phones and tablets – Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok – but they don’t know that microelectronics technology powers all of it! STEM talent is already tough to find. Our industry’s relative invisibility makes it even more difficult to find the workers we need. This campaign aims to enlighten and inspire a new generation of innovative workers to join the microelectronics industry. Williams: Why does the microelectronics industry need a more diverse talent pipeline?Liss: The workforce development challenges we face as an industry are layered. We all know that our industry – and our need for a skilled workforce – will continue to grow. We also know that women and people of color are widely underrepresented. They face systemic barriers that start in grade school and continue through each individual’s professional journey. This is not only a significant problem from a social justice and equity standpoint, but it also hampers our companies and our industry.A large body of research shows that more diverse companies are more innovative, productive, competitive, and profitable. They also have less absenteeism, better retention, and greater company and customer loyalty. Our industry cannot fully thrive without a diverse workforce. That’s why reversing this trend is a priority and will take significant investments and systemic changes throughout the entire workforce pipeline. If we do that, we’ll have more successful companies and a dramatically improved industry over the next decade.Williams: Who are our partners in this effort?Liss: We are working with Roadtrip Nation and CAEL, both affiliates of Strada Education.Roadtrip Nation is an Emmy Award-winning media and career guidance nonprofit, whose mission is to empower people to define their own roads in life. Each year, Roadtrip Nation selects socially relevant topics for its narrative-based storytelling projects. Content from these “roadtrips” is then disseminated across a wide range of education and media channels to inspire the next generation with a more inclusive view of the future of work. Roadtrip Nation is creating the video content and the PBS documentary series focuses on the microelectronics industry.The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) is a nonprofit that helps forge a clear, viable bridge between education and career success, providing solutions that promote sustainable and equitable economic growth. CAEL is creating our interactive online platform that will clarify career pathways and guide users in navigating the learning opportunities that connect them to industry jobs and enable upward mobility and access to leadership roles.Williams: How are we engaging our member companies in this work?Liss: Our members and their talent needs are at the core of this work and informing it every step of the way. We are ensuring that the campaign meets these needs as well as those of our university partners, students and workforce development peers in the industry. Through multiple discovery sessions, we are capturing our members’ ideas, hiring challenges, skill gaps and other insights. The campaign’s member-based steering committee is guiding the project.Williams: What kinds of companies and leadership have been involved so far?Liss: Participation has already been incredible, with 38 member companies having joined us for more than 15 hours of discovery sessions and brainstorming. A dozen member companies participate in the steering committee, which is currently defining career pathways and industry needs.Williams: What are the participating companies saying so far?Liss: The response has been amazing! It is truly an unprecedented collaboration. Participants have been effusive about the experience. Here are some of their observations:“It was such a valuable and meaningful discussion. I was so glad to see that so many people from this industry are on the same page – perception, challenge, target audience, action items.”“I enjoyed the sessions very much and the insights from all participants, it is a valuable and meaningful cause.”“These are complex challenges that our industry faces, but kudos to you and SEMI for delving into the big issues and formulating a way forward to raise visibility and elevate perception for the next generation of leadership!”“This project will turn out great in the end! I am amazed at the progress in just a few days.”“I’m excited to see where this project can lead our industry! Thank you for all your hard work and leadership.”“The sequence of events was well structured, organized and focused. I strongly believe that these will be of great benefit to the industry!”Williams: What is the end result we’re working toward?Liss: Through powerful storytelling, amazing networking opportunities, and targeted marketing and outreach tools, we will reach millions of potential employees and open their eyes to the terrific jobs and careers in our industry. The awareness campaign, the website, the videos and the documentary series are all tools that will also reach parents, teachers, school counselors, and industry influences, all while supporting our member companies in hiring.Williams: When can the industry expect to begin to see results of the campaign?Liss: The Roadtrip Nation documentary series will likely air in the first half of 2022, and we anticipate the CAEL website to be live by mid-2022.Williams: What’s the most interesting or powerful lesson you’ve learned so far?Liss: The most powerful thing that I’ve learned is that no matter the company, the leader, or the employee, they all agree on the critical importance of attracting and retaining talent to sustain innovation and industry growth. Because industry awareness and image is such a vital challenge, it’s creating a shared passion across companies and participants. It’s been exciting to see this alignment.Williams: Why are you such a champion of this? What does it mean to you personally?Liss: Throughout my career, I have sought opportunities to grow and scale my impact in STEM education. From being an educator, to an administrator, to running a California-based STEM education nonprofit supporting educators, and now in my work at SEMI, I have always looked for ways to reach more educators and students. As my career progressed, my roles shifted to not just education content, but how to align industry and education. I am passionate about providing students with learning environments that help them understand how the subject matter applies to the real world. When we connect abstract concepts to real-world applications, the lessons tend to be so much more tangible and accessible to kids. It inspires them to want to keep learning those subjects and makes it more likely that they will be excited about what they are studying.At SEMI, I love that I can help form partnerships between the industry and education providers to amplify these messages. I look forward to working with industry stakeholders to provide career opportunities for diverse populations, for soldiers, and for women returning to work.For more information about the Industry Image and Awareness Campaign, contact Shari at [email protected]. Michelle Williams is deputy director of the SEMI Foundation.

As the world combats climate change, the chip industry continues to build momentum in becoming a better steward of the environment. In July, Taiwan chip giant TSMC became the world’s first semiconductor company to join RE100, the global initiative to move away from a widespread reliance on fossil fuels and toward 100% renewable electricity. Applied Materials soon followed with a commitment to expand its renewable energy capacity. For the past four years, ASE Group, the largest outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) provider, was named an industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI), making clear its commitment to protecting the environment. For its part, TEL was selected to be part of the FTSE4Good, a series of ethical investment stock market indices, and FTSE Blossom Japan, an index that gauges the performance of Japanese companies demonstrating strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices.SEMI bolsters commitment to green energySEMI has also strengthened its commitment to promoting renewable energy in the semiconductor industry by adding the Green Power Pavilion at this year’s SEMICON Taiwan and continues to support the green energy movement as a co-organizer of Energy Taiwan. The largest renewable energy event in Taiwan, Energy Taiwan features international exhibitions, forums, policy initiatives and business matching events. This year the event attracted more than 12,000 visitors from 50 countries to highlight renewable energy breakthroughs and new products. The SEMI events complement RE100, which works across a wide range of industries that include financial services and retail. The initiative connects more than 260 members that count among them the world’s most influential businesses such as Apple, Google and Facebook and their suppliers through educational events.In many respects, TSMC is becoming a beacon of green energy in the chip industry. In July, the company committed to 20-year agreement to buy offshore wind power gear made by energy firm Ørsted in Taiwan, the global leader in the wind power industry. According to the purchase agreement, TSMC will offtake full production from 920-megawatt wind farms off the coast of Changhua County in western Taiwan expected to start operations in 2025 or 2026. The agreement will by far mark the world’s largest corporate green energy order in the semiconductor manufacturing and renewable energy industries and demonstrates TSMC’s long-term commitment to environmental sustainability.In addition to sourcing renewable energy, TSMC has been working closely with its downstream and upstream suppliers to help drive supply chain improvements geared toward a greener industry by offering on-site coaching, energy audits and educational resources. But the company's focus on energy efficiency is nothing new. For years, its Supply Chain Management forum has promoted industry sustainability and corporate responsibility. Moreover, TSMC worked with SEMI at this year’s SEMICON Taiwan to generate greater awareness of the importance of green energy to the industry and encourage SEMI members to become more involved in the movement.Supply chains expand eco-friendly practicesThe drive toward greener semiconductor manufacturing is also expanding to encompass entire supply chains. One notable initiative is Green Supply Chain Management (GrSCM), an effort to integrate environmental thinking into every level of the supply chain, from product concept to distribution. GrSCM involves the retooling of product design, materials sourcing, manufacturing and processes to reduce the ecological footprint of factories. So far, the results are encouraging. More companies are factoring environmental sustainability into their purchasing decisions to urge suppliers to better manage their power usage and join the green energy movement – an important step in curbing the unavoidable consequences of climate change. Terry Tsao is Global Chief Marketing Officer at SEMI and President of SEMI Taiwan.

Jack McCauley understands the interplay between video game hardware and human interaction like few others in the industry. He designed the guitar and drums for Red Octane’s (later Activision’s) Guitar Hero video game series. As co-founder and chief engineer of Oculus VR, he designed the Oculus DK1 and DK2 virtual reality (VR) headsets and helped guide the company through its acquisition by Facebook in 2014. Now active in automotive technology, he builds cars at Black Lab, his private R D facility and hardware incubator in Livermore, California. And, in no small feat, he thinks he’s solved the head-tracking problems in augmented reality (AR)/VR headsets – which he’ll demonstrate during his keynote presentation, MEMS Applications in Augmented Reality, October 6 at MSEC 2020. SEMI’s first virtual MEMS Sensors Executive Congress. The event is October 6-8 and 13-15, 2020, and registration is open. I interviewed McCauley to preview his presentation. Register now for MSEC 2020.SEMI: What inspired you to become the first person to use a MEMS sensor in a gaming device?McCauley: When I started designing the Guitar Hero peripherals, I had intermittent problems with the motion tracking. I switched to a Freescale single-axis accelerometer, developed some IP around it, and that fixed the problem. That’s how I became an early customer of MEMS. SEMI: When you pioneered immersive VR gaming experiences at Oculus VR, tech industry analysts predicted widespread adoption of VR for gaming. What do you think happened?McCauley: There are a lot of reasons why VR hasn’t become the standard bearer for gaming. Gaming used to be a solitary activity, but as companies like Microsoft and Sony got behind multiplayer gaming, we realized many gamers found the social aspect more important than the visual aspect. Many gamers are content to play on a 2D screen or on multiple monitors because they’re playing against many people. The proliferation of internet connections worldwide has also promoted the kinship and social aspect of gaming.SEMI: Do you think VR has a place in other applications?McCauley: I think it has a lot of potential in real estate, VR movies, and engineering and design, among other areas. The automotive designer Henrik Fisker, for example, created whole vehicles in a game-engine model. If you wanted to buy one of his cars, let’s say, you could change the color and upholstery, for example, and then view it in a VR environment. SEMI: One of the biggest obstacles to VR adoption is the motion sickness some people experience during game play. What would you do to fix that?McCauley: The vestibular system in the brain, which uses the inner ear, is crucial to helping you balance. If there’s a mismatch between what your eyes see and your brain is perceiving, you’re likely to feel dizzy. I’ve built a VR headset that uses a MEMS pico projector with micromirrors and a small laser for position tracking as well as for facial tracking and modeling. But the platform’s not for sale.Still, many of the technical advances that we’ve made in VR are helping us with AR development. The increasing power of mobile chipsets and GPUs, the decreasing geometry for individual transistors and the way specific chips are processed, screen interfaces that will drive a 4K panel at a high frame rate, plus MEMS devices inside the eyewear for rotations and tracking are all helpful innovations.SEMI: When designing cars in your own lab, you’re doing a lot of work with AR. What do you think of AR’s commercial viability?McCauley: I know there are well-funded AR programs in place at major companies. That’s because mobile-device companies want an omnipresent phone in front of your face. I thought Google Glass, for example, was brilliant, but it was way too early for that product, and there was too much hype behind it.McCauley's latest R D project is a vehicle that incorporates augmented features and a computerized display. The vehicle is a custom built, environmentally friendly super-car with enhanced driver safety and high vehicle performance. AR is appealing because it lets people see through a screen – and have objects appear on that screen – while they are moving through space. My son actually came up with one of the ideas I’m implementing in a car I’m designing. We were driving in Spain, and he suggested that instead of using Google Maps to show me driving directions – which would force me to look down at an infotainment display – a sign could appear on AR glasses that would instruct me how to drive to Italy. That’s just an example of how we’ll use AR. SEMI: After you sold Oculus VR to Facebook, you began investing time and resources into engineering education. Why did you make that choice?McCauley: I’m originally from a blue-collar family, and then I got an education at Berkeley. That made a major difference in my life. When I sold Oculus, I donated to education-focused charities primarily, because an education can lift an entire family out of poverty. Let’s say your family are farm workers, but you get a degree in engineering and land a job at Apple. That could produce a ripple effect. As other members of your family and people in your community see the benefits of your education, they’re more likely to get an education, too. SEMI: What would you like MSEC attendees to take away from your presentation?McCauley: I appreciate what the MEMS industry has done for VR because if Oculus didn’t have a nine degrees of freedom (9DoF) IMU, no one would have bought our company. A new application will come along sooner or later that will require a different type of MEMS technology, and I have total confidence that the MEMS industry will deliver what’s needed. For more information on McCauley’s R D projects or on his position as Innovator in Residence at UC Berkeley’s Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, visit his website. MEMS Sensors Industry Group® (MSIG), a SEMI technology community that connects the MEMS and sensors supply network in established and emerging markets, enables members to grow and prosper. Visit us today.Jack McCauley is an Innovator in Residence at the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, where he mentors students, lectures in courses focused on product design and design for manufacturing, and leads research and development projects focused on applications of augmented, virtual, and mixed reality for design professionals and students.McCauley graduated from Berkeley Engineering with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1986, and credits the time he spent at Berkeley as an undergraduate with helping to ignite his career. Maria Vetrano is a public relations consultant at SEMI.

We are living in a digital world where semiconductors are taken for granted, AI is bringing semiconductors back into the deserved spotlight, and now we are witnessing the dawn of the Cognitive Era enabled by semiconductors,” SEMI president and CEO Ajit Manocha said to an audience of more than 500 during his presentation – Rebirth of the Semiconductor Industry – at the First Global IC Entrepreneur Conference.Speaking at the Shanghai event in mid-December, Manocha recalled how, when he first entered the semiconductor industry in the 1980s, semiconductors revenue topped out at about $10 billion. Now, with sales having swelled to a staggering $450 billion, the industry is on a much faster growth track. Revenue could reach $500 billion by the end of 2020 and trillions of dollars by 2030. Over the past two decades, chips have given rise to social media and e-commerce powerhouses such as Google, Facebook, and Alibaba. All rely on heavily on chips, the engines of data centers across all industries. Wave after wave of technology innovation have been powered by semiconductors – from mainframe computers in the 1970s, personal computers in the 1980s, the Internet in the 1990s, and mobile and social networking in the early 20th century, to the current shining stars of technology such as IoT, big data, new memory, virtual reality, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence, Manocha said. New applications across areas such as smart manufacturing and digital healthcare are stoking the latest round of semiconductor growth.The rise of AI, like all the technologies before it, has renewed the semiconductor industry once again with its promise to drive growth of all industries worldwide, Manocha said. Five years ago, IoT was but a gleam in a technologist’s eye, more hype than reality with doubt about its viability running deep. Today, with about 60 percent of people in the world connected to the Internet, the enormous promise and potential of IoT is flowering. Industry growth will explode as the melding of AI and IoT birth countless applications and innovations in SMART transportation (0 emissions; 0 fatalities; 0 congestion), smart sensors (agriculture, infrastructure, healthcare) and SMART “Everything” (people, devices, homes, cities, industries, and the list goes on). Indeed, AI is now widely recognized as a chief growth driver of the semiconductor industry well into the future, with semiconductor technology at the core of AI innovation, he said. Semiconductors are thrusting the fifth industrial revolution into the fast lane. China’s much-anticipated rise as an industry powerhouse over the next few years will only accelerate industry growth, turning current disruptions into future opportunities as SEMI China continues to cultivate connection, collaboration and innovation in China’s fast-growing semiconductor sector.Cherry Sun is a marketing manager at SEMI China.

Standing-room only keynote speeches. A future awash in data amassed by transformative technologies and applications, with semiconductors at their core. Smart everything: Cars, medicine, manufacturing, workforce, you name it. The sheer numbers impressed as a record lineup of SEMICON West keynote speakers offered a glowing portrait of the future: The semiconductor industry stands on the cusp of a breakout expansion. Standing and seated shoulder-to-shoulder in the packed-to-gills opening keynote, the audience learned, indeed, that the best was yet to come: “This is the best SEMICON West, ever,” observed SEMI CEO Ajit Manocha. Here’s a glimpse of the keynotes by the numbers, starting with the luckiest of all. 7 – The number of keynotes – among the brightest lights in technology – sharing their visions of the future through the lens of breakthrough technologies that are nearly ready to make their indelible mark. Dozens of expert panelists also weighed in at SEMICON West, the annual U.S. flagship microelectronics gathering in San Francisco. 90 – The percentage of all data ever generated has been created in just the past two years as the cloud mushrooms with tweets, texts, emails, Facebook posts, YouTube videos, medical records and all manner of business information, noted Bill Bottoms, president and CEO of Third Millennium Test Solutions. In the years ahead, an almost unimaginable wealth of data will require analysis by artificial intelligence (AI) embedded in semiconductors to enable applications that go well beyond smart. 12-18 – That’s how many months it will take for data volume to double, predicted John Kelly III, IBM’s Senior VP, Cognitive Solutions. And it will double again and again, every 12-18 months. Kelly foresees a scale of growth “that will dwarf previous eras of computing … the number of opportunities is enormous.” Kelly’s four decades in computing gave considerable weight to his point that “in the industry, there has never been a more exciting point in time than today.” First – Technology is being re-born. Using baseball lingo, several speakers noted that we are just in “the first inning,” “the top half of the first inning” or “the beginning of the first inning” to make clear in the most emphatic terms the duration of prosperity that lies ahead for the industry. AI embedded in chips and demand for real-time analysis of AI data will be its fuel. As SEMI Americas president Dave Anderson observed with a smile, “We all know how long baseball games can go.” Third – That’s the current wave of machine learning the world is now experiencing, according to Sandia National Laboratories’ Principal Member Conrad James. Computers are now capable of solving many increasingly complex problems on their own, with no human intervention necessarily required, he said. 1000x – As spectacularly fast as computing power already is today, the industry will need to double that the rate of performance in the years ahead, predicted Applied Materials president and CEO Gary Dickerson. Demand for this herculean processing capacity will spur a “tremendous focus on innovation” among SEMI members, their customers and their customers’ customers. 5 to 15 – The remarkable amount of silicon that power today’s mobile devices will be overshadowed by the chips – equivalent in computing capacity to 5 to 15 cell phones – that will be the engine of self-driving and other features in future automobiles, predicted Pierre Ferragu, New Street Research Managing Partner, during the SEMI Bulls and Bears session. Automobiles with this souped-up computing capacity will sell in the millions worldwide in the years ahead, generating never-before-seen opportunities for the chip industry, he noted. 10,000 – It’s not just cars. Ten thousand is the number of sensors that will be built just into the wings of new Airbus A380-1000 aircraft, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster explained during his keynote. 10 terabits – The staggering amount of Facebook data uploaded daily in to the cloud, Papermaster noted. 1 Trillion – SEMI’s 2020 forecast that the industry will reach $500 billion in revenues by 2020 was eclipsed by one analyst, speaking at the SEMI Market Symposium on the first day of the event, predicted that the industry would top $1 trillion in the foreseeable future. SEMI’s Manocha later added that $1 trillion in industry revenue is possible by 2030, “maybe sooner.” 1 (sexy) coda – Coders are hip and software applications are the apple of the world’s eye. Even the most casual mobile device user knows that software apps makes it whirl. But “hardware is becoming sexy again,” said Applied Materials’ Dickerson, adding that equipment and other semiconductor hardware developed by SEMI members will enable the next great wave of global economic growth. Scott Stevens, SEMI