Microelectronics Training

Europe is facing an acute shortage of skilled microelectronics workers that undermines the growth potential of not only the electronics industry but the European economy as a whole. Nearly 1.1 million job advertisements for electro-engineering workers were placed in the EU between mid-2018 and the end of 2019 (CEDEFOP, 2020). The shortfall looms large as a skilled and diverse workforce that can continuously innovate is the oxygen of microelectronics. In light of the critical importance of microelectronics to Europe’s ability to fulfill its growth potential, SEMI Europe participated in the high-level roundtable hosted by Commissioner Nicolas Schmit and Commissioner Thierry Breton on October 5. The discussion’s key takeaway: The skills challenge facing the microelectronics industry is too complex for one organization to tackle, and reskilling and upskilling its workforce should be a common priority for Europe. Only with a diverse, substantial and skilled microelectronics workforce can Europe achieve its R D, design and manufacturing ambitions while ensuring its sovereignty in the digital age. The roundtable highlighted the EU Pact for Skills as a key means to narrow the industry’s skills gap.An ever-growing part of our lives, microelectronics, with their ability to run billions of computations per second and store vast quantities of data, are the brains of modern technology. The digital sovereignty of nations around the world today relies on advanced microprocessors to collect, transfer, analyze and store immense amounts of data used in key end-user sectors such as mobility, telecommunications, energy, security and healthcare. Information and communication technologies (ICT) enabled by microelectronics are helping much of the world’s population to work and study from home and remain safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.According to the Smarter2030 Report, further deployment of ICT, including electronic components in critical sectors such as transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, construction and energy, could eliminate the equivalent of 12.1 billion tons of CO2 per year globally. These are some of the reasons why nations worldwide are making large-scale investments to advance a homegrown microelectronics R D, design and manufacturing base. It is no surprise, then, that semiconductors are now at the center of the so-called global techno-trade wars.Clearly, Europe urgently needs to mobilize and pool resources to develop effective lifelong learning programs for all workers and continue investing in microelectronics innovation. We need to instill the passion for creating technology among current and future workforce, in particular women and people with challenged backgrounds, and build a highly diverse talent pool. Working together, we can better demonstrate how computing technologies, including quantum, high-performance and edge AI, provide solutions to grand societal challenges and attract talented people to the fascinating world of electronic components and systems.Against this backdrop, the microelectronics industry finds the Pact for Skills very timely and crucial to advancing the talent pool underpinning Europe’s deep digital ecosystem. The Pact will play an instrumental role in improving the scope and the quality of training partnerships at regional, national and European levels, sharing best practices and helping the microelectronics industry and workforce adapt to the effects of COVID-19.The microelectronics industry is committed to building on the momentum created by the METIS Erasmus+ collaborative project and to mobilizing our ecosystem and education partners for a successful Pact for Skills in Microelectronics starting this year.The High-Level Roundtable: Skills for Microelectronics was hosted by Commissioner Thierry Breton and Commissioner Nicolas Schmit. Participants included Paul Boudre, CEO, SOITEC; Lars Reger, CEO Germany and CTO, NXP; Frits van Hout, Executive Vice-President and Chief Strategy Officer, ASML; Françoise Chombar, CEO, Melexis; Emmanuel Sabonnadiere, CEO, CEA-Leti; Luc Van den hove, President and CEO, imec; Sabine Nietzsche, Board member, Silicon Saxony and Vice President, GlobalFoundries; Laith Altimime, President, SEMI Europe (coordinator of METIS); Yolande Berbers, President, European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI); James Calleja, President, European Forum for Technical Vocational Education and Training (EFVET); Ludovic Voet, Confederal Secretary, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).Emir Demircan is director of Advocacy and Public Policy at SEMI Europe. To learn more about SEMI Europe advocacy, contact Emir at [email protected].

METIS, a Sector Skills Alliance project co-funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ Program and coordinated by SEMI, recently launched an online questionnaire aimed at gauging the skills and expertise the industry needs to drive continued growth over the next five years. The survey, which will stay online until 15 October 2020, is a part of the METIS project’s efforts to involve a broad range of stakeholders in the microelectronics industry to assess workforce, future technology and economic trends influencing talent development and the skills needed most today and in the next five years. The survey aims to highlight the skill mismatches in specific job profiles that are of increasing importance to the microelectronics industry. It elaborates on the upskilling and reskilling needs for design engineers. Given that semiconductor design is becoming increasingly crucial for Europe’s competitiveness and technological sovereignty, the new skills required from design engineers are a priority area for the METIS project. Other examples are the manufacturing and maintenance technicians, two job profiles that are currently experiencing significant shifts in their skillsets, as COVID-19 has thoroughly transformed their way of work.While the microelectronics industry has been very aware of the importance of the high level of investment in R D, it is equally crucial to ensure that the workforce of the industry is equipped with knowledge and skills for the rapid technological developments. Maintaining high levels of investment in workforce including attracting talent, updating their knowledge and skills with the latest technological development, and supporting them to lead innovations, is essential for this industry. There is a growing demand for specific requirements for this sector to support innovation in many other sectors such as automotive, energy, healthcare, and government, to foster benefits from emerging digital technologies such as Cloud Services, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Digital Reality, and Blockchain.In addition to the online questionnaire, the METIS project consortium is interviewing top experts from leading microelectronics companies, education representatives from universities and training academies, and experts from government agencies and industry associations. The interview outcomes provide inputs on what kind of employee profiles are the most difficult to find, what skills this sector is looking for in a candidate, and what kind of training and policy frameworks are needed to improve employers’ skills. Those inputs are essential to develop the skill strategy and form recommendations on training modules.Furthermore, the METIS project consortium is organizing 10 focus groups. Each of the focus groups is dedicated to a key topic, such as SC design, SC materials, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, etc. For example, one of the METIS focus groups is dedicated to Edge AI, a top priority for the microelectronics industry. Strengthening the AI talent pipeline is essential to harness the potential of Edge AI in Europe and to facilitate the shift from the Cloud to the Edge when possible in order to meet specific demands (e.g. for autonomous driving), reduce energy consumption for data communications, and to increase efficiency. The EU’s White Paper “Artificial Intelligence - A European approach to excellence and trust”[1] , published this February, also emphasizes the importance of upskilling and reskilling to position Europe among the global leaders in AI. Hence, the focus group will work towards pinpointing the skills necessary for the semiconductor workforce to capture the potential of the trend.The results of the survey, interviews and focus groups will be used to form the Microelectronics Skills Strategy. Based on this strategy, the METIS project will design 43 training modules for 1,100 hours learning in four key areas of the microelectronics sector:Component designSystem designBasic of manufacturingKey competencies and innovative thinkingThe METIS project is planning to recruit 2,000 learners in companies and education and training institutes to participate in the trainings and validate the impact. The METIS project will also work with companies, education and training providers to ensure continuity of the initiative and foster cooperation.During the METIS project course (2019 – 2023), the Skills Strategy will be updated yearly to reflect the latest technology and market trends. To enable the Skills Strategy to continue serving the industry, METIS is working on forming a permanent instrument, named Observatory and Skills Council, to continue developing the skills strategy, update the training and facilitate cooperation between industry and education and training providers.Laith Altimime, president of SEMI Europe, and 50 members of the Microelectronics Training, Industry and Skills (METIS) consortium The METIS consortium invites companies and associations involved in microelectronics training and education provision, human resources and career services professionals, technology strategists and policy makers to complete the online questionnaire. Stakeholders are also welcome to subscribe to the METIS newsletter for the latest on METIS programs. For more details, please contact Yanying Li at [email protected].[1] EU’s White Paper on Artificial Intelligence available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/commission-white-paper-artificial-intelligence-feb2020_en.pdfDr. Yanying Li is senior manager of Collaborative Projects at SEMI Europe.

We live in the New Industrial Age. Manufacturing is undergoing a profound transformation, driven not only by technological (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, robotics, IoT) but also societal, market and regulatory developments that have fundamental implications for the workforce competency requirements. How can education and training systems keep pace with this unprecedented change? How does a future-proof curriculum look like?This topic has been extensively addressed by the Curriculum Guidelines for Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) and Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMT) initiative (2017-2019) of the Executive Agency for SMEs (EASME) and DG GROW of the European Commission. Carried out by PwC, the initiative focuses on the promising ways of organising learning experiences of individuals and groups in the New Industrial Age. The initiative produced the Curriculum Guidelines 4.0 that aim to equip all key stakeholder groups with the knowledge base needed to transform the existing curricula.The guidelines were developed based on the extensive state-of-play analysis and active stakeholder contribution by means of expert workshops, pan-European online surveys, in-depth interviews and individual expert consultations. All key stakeholder groups were involved in the preparation of the guidelines, including the representatives of education and training providers, industry, policymakers and supporting structures (e.g. industry associations, cluster organisations and trade unions), as well as learners themselves. SEMI was among the key contributors. The guidelines were presented to the public at the EU Conference on Skills for Industry: Curriculum Guidelines 4.0 in Brussels on 26 November, 2019.The guidelines aim to be applicable for both designing fundamentally new educational offers and/or advancing the existing curricula, depending on the level of required change. They address non-tertiary vocational education and training, higher education and on-the-job training for the manufacturing-related domains.The guidelines follow a holistic approach covering a broad spectrum of dimensions relevant to curriculum design and implementation, namely: Strategy: defining core values, commitments, opportunities, resources and capabilities of an educational/training institution Collaboration: promoting practices that move beyond the typical institutional collaboration patterns and engaging individuals and communities Content: defining the nature of educational content, including specific principles related to the actual content of the curricula Learning environment: creating specific environment during the program, e.g. stimulating multidisciplinary orientation, design thinking, team spirit, collective problem-solving, risk-taking behaviour, experimental approaches Delivery mechanisms: establishing means by which learners experience and access education/training; paying special attention to technology-enabled learning Assessment: identifying most appropriate forms of assessment, including advantages and disadvantages Recognition: exploring appropriate formal and informal ways of recognition Quality: identifying the determinants of education training quality: what makes learners’ and employers’ perception different? Based on the results of the pan-European survey, the four key elements that require the most substantial change are Strategy, Collaboration, Learning Environment and Content.The guidelines will be tested in practice in the context of METIS (Microelectronics Training, Industry and Skills), a project recently launched by SEMI and 19 partners from 14 countries. Aligned with the Curriculum Guidelines 4.0, METIS will establish a Microelectronics Observatory and Skills Council consisting of representatives from industry, academia, NGOs, think tanks and government. The consortium will develop a New Skills Strategy for the microelectronics industry in Europe with a focus on raising occupational profiles and skills critical to the future of the sector.METIS will enable a new industry-driven curriculum with 43 modules integrating online education and work-based learning in microelectronics design and manufacturing. Training will focus on chip design, system design, basic of manufacturing and key competencies. METIS is a Sector Skills Alliance co-funded by the Erasmus+ Program, receiving 4 million EUR funding from the EU.Preparing students for lifelong learning, offering Big Picture education, creating effective learning ecosystems, applying problem-based and student-centric approaches, shifting from human-robot interactions towards human-machine collaboration – these are just some examples of the curriculum guidelines principles highlighted in the guidelines.The guidelines aim to offer key highlights, indicate a variety of possibilities and identify sources for more detailed information and inspiration. The guidelines by no means aim to serve as a standardised detailed recipe for organising education and training processes, as there is no one best way to approach it. The diversity of learners’ needs and contexts per definition implies a need for multitude of approaches, which could also be combined in their own unique/customised education and training solutions.The Curriculum Guidelines 4.0 will be publicly released in January 2020, and will be available on the EU Publications. More information about this and related initiatives can be found at https://skills4industry.eu/. Dr. Kristina Dervojeda leads the PwC Innovation Research Centre in the Netherlands.