SEMI Foundation

More than 2 years after the start of the pandemic, the US unemployment rate has dropped dramatically to 3.5% in July 2022, the lowest since February 2020. However, the participation rate has not recovered in one important segment of the workforce: women – particularly women in professional careers.

Many SEMI members have long looked to the military as a rich source of talent, and many veterans and active reservists have been employed in the microelectronics sector for years. The April 2022 issue of GI Jobs featured an interview with West Point graduate and TEL President Larry Smith.

While many pioneering women in STEM have made significant contributions to science and technology, they have not been given equal recognition for their work. Following is a short list of some of the many women who have been trailblazers in STEM and had an impact on the microelectronics industry.

In this article, several experts weigh in on considerations for developing the smart manufacturing workforce that will help to alleviate the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing talent shortage, even as multiple, data-intensive $1 billion to $10 billion fabrication facilities come online.

Jennifer Braggin, director of technical training at Entegris, was honored with the inaugural SEMI Foundation Excellence in Achievement Award at SEMICON West 2021 in San Francisco in December for her contributions to advancing workforce development and DEI in the microelectronics industry.

29 new fabs will break ground globally between now and 2022. But who will staff them? With 34,000 current vacancies in the semiconductors industry worldwide, companies large and small are already competing for the same talent pool.

What does it mean to identify as LGBTQIA+ in the semiconductor industry? It’s an interesting question to ask, but a difficult one to answer. Because we live in a world in which cisgender heteronormity is assumed, it’s possible to self-identify as LGBTQIA+ without sharing that information publicly. Coworkers and managers might not even realize that their colleague or employee is gay, lesbian, transgender, non-binary or other. Unlike other minorities, notably people of color, LGBTQIA+ people may choose to keep their identities invisible.As I began outreach for this article, I recognized that some people might not want to expose a potential vulnerability to both their co-workers and a broader global audience of SEMI members, so I tried to make them feel more comfortable. I told them I’m a lesbian. I said that I’d send content for their review before publishing. But I quickly discovered that wasn’t enough, despite sweeping cultural and legal advances around LGBTQIA+ attitudes and identity. According to a 2020 Gallup Poll, 5.6% of U.S. adults now identify as LGBTQIA+, up from 4.5% just three years ago. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage, and in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. The semiconductor industry has been historically conservative. The times, however, are changing. Large chip companies such as AMD, Intel and Lam Research actively support diversity and inclusion efforts across minority groups, including LGBTQIA+, and that’s a good thing, but is it enough? And if not, what actions can SEMI members take to help LGBTQIA+ people in semiconductors feel safe enough to choose visibility?According to Antoinette Hamilton, global head of Inclusion and Diversity at Lam Research, more than 46% of LGBTQIA+ employees in the industry aren’t out in the workplace. That tells us there’s still work to be done, a challenge that Lam is embracing. With its Pride employee resource group (ERG) leading the way, partnerships with organizations such as PFLAG and Out Equal, and recruitment efforts made through organizations such as Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (oSTEM), Lam has earned a score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index and was named one of the Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.“At Lam, we understand the importance of empowering employees to bring their authentic self to work,” says Hamilton. “We believe when employees feel valued and included, each person can reach their full potential.”Back in 1992 when Intel paid to relocate Judi Goldstein, her partner and their son from New Jersey to Oregon, mainstream cultural attitudes toward gays and lesbians were very different. According to a June 1992 Gallup poll, only 48% of Americans thought that “gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should be legal,” with 44% saying they should be illegal. A May 2020 Gallup poll recorded a dramatic shift in attitudes, with 72% affirming the legality of same-sex relations and only 24% opposed.By the late 1990s, Intel had extended domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples. “I registered my partner – now my wife – and our son, and realized that from then on, my whole family would have health insurance through Intel,” says Goldstein, who identifies as a gay woman and uses she/her pronouns. “Both relocating my family and providing family health coverage solidified my attachment to Intel, which was way ahead of other companies at the time.”By 1995, Goldstein became one of the first members of IGLOBE, Intel’s ERG for LGBTQ+ employees. Since that time, she’s observed further progress at Intel, first with the addition of gender identity and expression to Intel’s anti-harassment policy, and later with the inclusion of gender-neutral bathrooms at all major US sites. And advancement didn’t stop there.“We now have international IGLOBE chapters, a celebration of Pride Month in June, company support for the Equality Act and other legislation, a provision for transgender health benefits, and the launch of Self-ID efforts in 2017,” she says.From her start as software engineer more than 32 years ago to her current positions as director of the Open Source Audio and Security Engineering teams, Goldstein has played an instrumental role pioneering new technologies and mentoring other engineers at Intel – in addition to serving as a role model for LGBTQIA+ employees coming through the ranks. Now a grandmother with a five-year-old granddaughter, Goldstein lives in Oregon with her wife of more than 30 and two dogs. Location, Location, LocationAs social animals, we tend to value safe and welcoming places to live. When you’re LGBTQIA+, this may mean moving to an urban area that is more likely to embrace diverse orientations and cultures.After getting his master’s in astrophysics, Chuck Chung had a decision to make. Remain in the same field, which would limit his options on where to live, or get a doctorate in engineering, which would expand them.“In the ‘90s when I was making this choice, things were very different, and I knew that where I worked and lived would have a huge impact on how open I could be,” said Chung. “While I would have loved a career in astrophysics, I realized that engineering would be a more practical choice because I was more likely to find work in a city.”Both personally and professionally, engineering has proved a good choice for Chung. He’s lived in San Francisco and Silicon Valley for the past 18 years, where being out in the workplace is rarely an issue. “I compartmentalize my personal and professional lives when necessary, such as when business colleagues who are overseas talk about their families in casual conversation. Most of the time, though, my identity as a gay man is a non-issue, and I work for a company that really cares.”From his pioneering work in MEMS and genetic sequencing to his current focus on the next generation of microarchitectures at IBM, Chung has long thrived. Now, with a new book on MEMS Product Development – co-authored with two other Ph.D.’s, Alissa Fitzgerald and Carolyn White of A.M. Fitzgerald Associates – the best days of Chung’s career may still be ahead of him. He lives in the Bay area with his husband and their two children.Kunal Garg’s identity didn’t influence his career choices because when he started in semiconductors, he wasn’t out to himself or others. A few years into his engineering career at his former company, Garg realized his identity as a gay man at a time when the national discussion about same-sex marriage was at its apex – leading to some uncomfortable situations at work. “As some of my colleagues and managers openly debated same-sex marriage, they seemed oblivious to the fact that there were LGBTQIA+ people at work,” says Garg. “I knew then that I wanted to steer such conversations in a way that would feel safe and inviting for people like me, who work in this industry while being true to their identities.”Once he’d come out to his family and friends, particularly after he married his husband, Garg wasn’t willing to stay silent at work. “Although it took courage and internal struggle to come out to colleagues, my identity as a gay man wasn’t something I wanted to hide or deny anymore,” he says. “Some people laughed when I mentioned my ‘husband.’ The idea that their colleague, an engineer, an Indian immigrant, a man, could be gay and married to another guy was so foreign, it was almost laughable. Luckily, this didn’t stop me from being myself at work, and over time, these types of conversations became very rare.”Nonetheless, Garg looked around for ways to be part of the LGBTQIA+ engineering community. When he moved to AMD in Austin, he wanted to start with a clean slate. “When my manager called to invite me to join his team at AMD, I casually brought up the fact that my husband was going to need to start looking for a new job in Austin. And, very casually, he asked me what my husband did for a living, and we went on to discuss how Austin would be a great city for us to live in,” says Garg. “The fact that this was such a normal conversation was a big factor in my decision to join AMD.”Soon after starting as a design engineer at AMD, Garg found that LGBTQIA+ engineering community for which he’d been searching. He joined AMD’s Pride ERG, a group that he now chairs. “Being a part of this ERG has been transformational for me on a personal level and has allowed me to connect with my fellow engineers and people in my industry, beyond our mutual love for science and technology.”Become a change agentWhile some chip companies actively promote inclusion and diversity of LGBTQIA+ employees, others still have a long way to go. SEMI and the SEMI Foundation are uniquely positioned to help advance LGBTQIA+ equity issues in the microelectronics industry. "The SEMI Foundation is committed to promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in our industry for the benefit of our workers and our member companies,” says Shari Liss, executive director of the SEMI Foundation. “We are designing programs for human resources departments, company leaders, and DEI allies to make the case for stronger DEI practices that will attract, retain, and promote LGBTQIA+ individuals and other underrepresented groups in our industry. We will soon publish SEMI's Roadmap to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and DEI Toolkit, which will contain tools to help companies strengthen their workplace cultures so everyone – including those that identify as LGBTQIA+ – will feel welcome, and will be able to do their best work."“If we want to truly see the semiconductor industry flourish on a global level, we need to push for equitable treatment of LGBTQIA+ and other minority employees,” says Garg. “SEMI can help by educating industry leaders, especially in countries outside North America and Europe, on how diversity and inclusion through policy are vital to their sustained productivity. These workshops and trainings should be data-driven to encourage companies to hire more LGBTQIA+ employees and to create policies that promote the well-being of all employees.”It’s not just at the company level or the industry association level that matters. Just as individuals are necessary change agents in proliferating greater equity among women and people of color, they’re also needed as allies of LGBTQIA+ people.“Like so many of us, I’d love to wave a magic wand to end discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, but like any cultural shift, most change comes in small steps, not in giant leaps,” said Karen Lightman, executive director, Metro21: Smart Cities Institute – Carnegie Mellon University. “Fortunately, it’s easy to help make those small steps by becoming an ally to LGBTQIA+-identified people. When you see an injustice, don’t stay silent. Use your voice. There’s transformative power in that act alone. As one step, I’ve started using my pronouns when I introduce myself and now include them in my digital signature. It’s an easy way for me to express that I am an ally to LGBTQIA+-identified people.”Help us make the change. Use your voice. Get involved. Encourage your company to advocate for LGBTQIA+ inclusion and diversity.Maria Vetrano, principal of Vetrano Communications, is a PR consultant at SEMI Foundation.

At the SEMI Foundation, we’re taking steps to support a big, audacious goal – achieving gender parity in the microelectronics industry. Dating to its roots at Bell Labs, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Intel in the late 1950s and 1960s, the semiconductor industry was pioneered by men at a time when far fewer women were in the workforce. While women have made major workforce gains since those early days, we’re still far from achieving anything close to an equitable representation of women. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, only 11.8% of electrical and electronics engineers – and just 8.7% of mechanical engineers – are women. What’s more, research from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), a non-profit that champions equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research, tells us that women drop out of engineering careers more steadily and quickly than men. According to AAUW research, just 30% of women working in engineering are still in the field after 20 years compared to 35% of men. By the time women have been in the field for 30-34 years, that number falls to 19% – while it increases to 39% of men among the same cohort. The small number of women in engineering careers and the fewer still who stay in engineering long term illustrate the troubling gender disparities in the industry. Even with these low numbers, however, there are still women who have managed to not just stay in the industry, but to thrive and lead within it. I talked with four of these women about their professional journeys and how they believe women can be best supported in careers in our industry. The AAUW research report Solving the Equation: The Variables for Women’s Success in Engineering and Computing shows that attrition in engineering is higher among women than men. Passion for math and scienceLam Research VP Gowri Kamarthy took her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley directly to Lam Research, where she’s spent the past 22 years in technical positions. Today she heads the company’s conductor etch product line.Coming from a family of engineers, including her father and siblings, Dr. Kamarthy had a built-in support system that was essential to her success. She never felt intimidated by male peers after spending her formative years pursuing her passion for math and science.“I may have stood out as a minority in the field of engineering, but there was also a silver lining in standing out,” she said. “People notice you.”Kamarthy realizes that engineering careers are generally perceived as being less compatible with family life, for both women and men.“Anyone who wants work-life balance in an engineering career will have to navigate its special challenges, including the need to work long hours to match the rapid pace of innovation,” Kamarthy said.Drawing from her own experience, Kamarthy offers some career advice. “Perseverance and grit are key to success,” she said. “The other ingredient is luck. I was fortunate to have great bosses at Lam who didn’t see gender first and foremost. Instead, they recognized my ability to deliver on projects and encouraged me to perform at my best.” A love for math and science. The confidence to excel in those subjects. A support system to help her through the bumpy times. These were also truths for Sandy Vos, Ph.D., director of R D at NXP Semiconductors.“I was always good at figuring things out,” says Dr. Vos. “I remember feeling enthralled when I got my first internship because it combined engineering, math, science and manufacturing.” Like Kamarthy, Vos was aware of her status as a woman in a male-dominated field, but it didn’t stop her.“If anything, my gender drove me to prove myself,” Vos said. “And I’ve been fortunate because everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve been a part of a smart and collaborative team.”That doesn’t mean gender never came into play. Whenever it did become an issue, Vos didn’t shy away from hard conversations. She recalls having a conflict on the plant floor with two men who each stood over six feet and were about 100 pounds heavier.“I had a conversation with them, and we figured it out,” she said. “But for a while there, my heart was racing.”Gender felt like a bigger issue when Vos was younger. “Now that I have gray hair, it’s not much of a concern,” Vos said. “But earlier in my career, I started putting Ph.D. on my business card so people would know I could talk technical details.”Though just one of three women in an undergraduate class of 35 engineering students – and with a teaching cohort of all-male professors – Debbie Gustafson anticipated equitable treatment in her college engineering program. She had the same outlook when she began her career in semiconductor manufacturing. But the belief that she’d receive the same treatment as her male peers went largely unfulfilled. This didn’t slow her down. During her first year as CEO of Energetiq, she grew the company’s revenues and valuation. A year later, she steered the company through a successful acquisition by Hamamatsu Photonics. Today Gustafson continues to lead Energetiq as a wholly owned subsidiary, but the road to the top job wasn’t without hurdles. Gustafson muscled through the tough times.“When I started out, I traveled to Japan and Korea when there weren’t other women in technical roles,” she said. “My first meetings were extremely frustrating. I was the only woman in the room, and the men wouldn’t address me. This went on for a year, but I kept coming back and built the relationships.”Now a member of the SEMI Foundation Board of Trustees, Gustafson credits mentors with helping her navigate the nuances of doing business across cultures during those early years.A rocket scientist among usAlissa Fitzgerald might tell you that MEMS isn’t rocket science. But that’s only because she has a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics, which actually is rocket science. Dr. Fitzgerald worked at a government laboratory and a large defense contractor before she got her Ph.D. and moved to a MEMS industry startup. Though gaining valuable experience, she found the environments too hierarchical and lacking in career development opportunities for young female engineers. As one of the few women engineers at these heavy-duty engineering firms where, in the 1990’s, there were no women in leadership roles, Dr. Fitzgerald sensed that opportunities for her to advance were remote. Fitzgerald started her own firm rather than climb up the ladder of another company, but it turns out, her motivation had nothing to do with gender.“It was the way engineers were treated like Dilbert,” she said. “I felt like a cog in the wheel, working for corporations that weren’t nurturing or appreciative of engineers.”After years of working for other companies, Fitzgerald founded the eponymous AMFitzgerald Associates, a developer of innovative MEMS and sensor solutions for specialty applications. When gender did come up for Fitzgerald, it manifested in men questioning her technical abilities.“Early in my career, I felt like I had to prove myself worthy, even though my degrees were from MIT and Stanford,” she said.Over 3,000 respondents to the Workplace Experiences Survey, sponsored by the Society of Women Engineers and the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings Law, validate Fitzgerald’s experience. 61% of women vs. 35.1% of white men surveyed cited Prove-It-Again Bias – “having to prove themselves repeatedly to get the same levels of respect and recognition as their colleagues.” For engineers of color, that disparity was even worse. 68% of engineers of color (both women and men) reported Prove-It-Again Bias vs. 35% of white men.“For women and people of color, there’s rarely an assumption of competence,” Fitzgerald said.It’s sad but true that we can’t decouple the challenges women face from the challenges people of color face. Both are dramatically underrepresented as chip companies, and women of color represent the smallest percentage of the industry’s workforce and leadership.Inclusivity mattersWorking toward gender equity isn’t just a case of doing what’s right. It’s a case of doing what’s profitable. Research shows that companies with more women on the board perform better.“Given the pace of innovation in semiconductors, we need people from different backgrounds and perspectives to solve the hard problems challenging our industry,” Kamarthy said.Vos appreciates the fact that SEMI is creating a forum of inclusion.“Inclusion starts when you’re young,” she said. “School-aged kids are already making decisions about a future they see as exciting and possible. Our job is to make sure they have the opportunities to pursue what they envision.”Change won’t come magically, though. Fitzgerald believes companies need to make a concerted effort to attract a diverse population.“While I see a disproportionate number of female applicants, I’m more the exception than the rule,” she said. “When male executives call and ask, ‘How are you finding all these amazing female engineers?’ I say, ‘they’re finding me.’”Elevate the storyAchieving gender parity in microelectronics is a daunting task. Fortunately, access to SEMI’s global membership puts us in a unique position to make this deeply complex story clear and relevant to our members, so we can help support the shift.We’re looking at both the stark numbers of women working in microelectronics and at the lack of longevity of women in engineering. We’re elevating the conversation about childhood education. Why are girls passed over in math and science classes in early grade school, and what is the effect of teachers’ lowered expectations for girls taking these classes? What does it mean to be the only in the room? The only woman, or the only woman of color, on a team or in a meeting room. Feelings of isolation or disengagement – or frustration with Prove-It-Again bias – often lead to turnover in an industry that already struggles with retention.Reverse the trendThere’s much SEMI members can do to work toward gender parity in our industry. Look at recruitment, hiring, retention and promotion processes to see how women fare in them. Consider how to create a company culture of self-awareness and inclusion. Ensure equitable pay. Suggest and request women speakers for keynotes and panels at conferences. And offer workplace flexibility to allow women – who often bear most family responsibilities – to take time off or reconfigure schedules so they can help care for children or ailing parents.It’s time for our industry to reverse the trend of gender inequality. Research shows that companies with greater gender and racial parity are more productive, innovative, and profitable. If we welcome and support women in our companies, we will help women – and our industry – reach their full potential.Get involved with SEMIRegister for the Women in Semiconductors (May 3, 2021). This virtual event will include interactive exploration and discussion on strengthening the roles of women in hybrid and remote work environments. Everyone managing teams or experiencing the gender parity challenges and opportunities will benefit from the fresh thinking and best practices that the Women in Semiconductor program is known for.Participate in the SEMI Mentoring Program. By matching mentees with industry leaders and professionals, SEMI Foundation facilitates one-on-one mentoring relationships that benefit all participants. Whether you are a recent university graduate or growing in your microelectronics career and looking for support, participating in the SEMI Mentoring Program will put you on the right track.Participate in the McKinsey Company 2021 Women in the Workplace Study, which looks at representation and the experience of women in companies across the U.S. and offers recommendations on how to retain and support women. Email [email protected]. Shari Liss is executive director of SEMI Foundation. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

As technology companies worldwide struggle to narrow the yawning gender parity gap, organizations in other industries ranging from insurance and food services to banking have emerged as guiding lights for how to boost the number of women in the workplace. MetLife, the 48,000-employee insurance giant, is among the standouts. In 2015, the New York-based company launched Developing Women’s Career Experience, a 14-month program designed to hone the business and strategic acumen of high-potential female workers. The goal was to increase the sense of urgency to promote women. The program bore fruit, expanding the representation of female managers and entry-level workers to 50 percent. Over the past five years, Sodexo, the French food services and facilities management company headquartered in Paris, has also upped female representation on its list of corporate priorities, expanding the ranks of women in entry and manager roles by 10 percent on average. More impressively, the number of women senior vice presidents has grown 20 percent and those in the C-suite have doubled.Sodexo drove the increases by developing a scorecard to hold managers accountable for diversity and inclusion and tying their performance to total compensation. Fully 10 percent of their bonuses were linked to strides in diversity and inclusion. Leaders at the 470,000-employee company scored points for hiring, promoting and retaining more women and underrepresented groups and could hike the total by taking other steps to improve the work culture by demonstrating inclusive leadership.“We do see companies taking bold actions and are seeing tremendous results,” said Audrey Bernardo, a partner at consultancy McKinsey Company, as she presented the case studies at Diversity – Women in Tech to kick off FLEX|MEMS Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC) 2020 last week in San Jose.And it turns out the payoffs matter not only for the bottom line but also a company’s ability to attract and retain the best talent. Citing research from the McKinsey Company and Lean In 2019 report Women in the Workplace as well as McKinsey’s 2018 Delivering through Diversity, Bernardo noted that gender-diverse companies are 24 percent more likely to financially outperform their less inclusive counterparts, while organizations with higher ethnic diversity are 33 percent more likely to outshine less diverse companies.Younger workers are particularly sensitive to diversity biases. The survey of more 250,000 employees at 600 companies found that employees under the age of 30 are almost two times more likely than older workers to raise the need for diversity and more likely to see bias in the workplace.“Diversity and inclusion has become a business imperative,” Bernardo said. Yet despite the urgency, gains among tech companies in cultivating a diverse workforce have been hard-won in part because of the challenge to better balance the proportions of male and female workers. And the headwinds start to gather when females are young. According to the report, 15-year-old females are vastly outnumbered by boys in their appetite to work in tech fields, with girls 65 percent to 84 percent less interested in pursuing tech careers than boys the same age.That dynamic extends to females in their college years. Despite earning more degrees than men overall, women account for the minority of tech degrees – ranging from as low as 13 percent representation in Chile and 15 percent in Brazil to as high as 45 percent and 36 percent, respectively, in India and Mexico. In the U.S., women account for just 23 percent of undergraduate degrees in tech.Bernardo praised the growing number of companies that are “reaching further down the age pipeline” to inspire young students to pursue STEM educations and careers in tech and cited the work of the SEMI Foundation – through High Tech U and other programs geared toward young students – to inspire the next generation of industry workers.The picture brightens once women have entered careers at technology hardware companies – they are promoted at only a slightly lower rate than men. Yet when it comes to outside hires, women are brought on board at a much lower rate than men. For example, women account for just 22 percent of the senior vice presidents hired at hardware companies, 17 percent of vice presidents, 22 percent of senior managers and directors, and 25 percent of managers.Part of the challenge for women in senior leadership positions is balancing careers with their home lives since they are two times more likely to be in dual-career households than their male counterparts.“We will never solve the women-in the-workplace problem until we solve the women-in-the-home problem,” Bernardo said.Indeed, giving women the leeway to work from home and take time off for family or personal reasons ranked among the power practices the study found most correlated to diversity and inclusion progress. Others include C-level executive participation in shaping a diversity and inclusion strategy, establishing numeric targets for tracking gender representation across the workforce as Sodexo has done, and unconscious bias training. “D I needs to be visible from the top,” Bernardo said.A shining example of executive support for diversity and inclusion initiatives is the work by Atlanta-based SunTrust Bank to encourage workers to embrace differences in people and build awareness of unconscious bias. In 2018, the 23,000-employee company held a daylong event that included workshops focused on candid conversations about gender, race, disability, LGPTQ identity, religion and military service.The Day of Understanding was sponsored by the SunTrust CEO. Within three years, the proportion of employees viewing the SunTrust workplace as inclusive grew to 80 percent, an 11 percent jump.Michael Hall is a marketing communications manager at SEMI.