The COVID-19 pandemic taught the United States government an important lesson about the importance of supply chains and ensuring the ability to manufacture critical components, such as semiconductors, domestically rather than relying upon overseas suppliers.
During the pandemic, supply chains ground to a halt and the inability to acquire important semiconductors from foreign manufacturers like Taiwan left American companies and consumers with long wait times for a variety of products, from new automobiles to military weapons.
The legislative response to this crisis came during the summer of 2022 in the form of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act (“CHIPS Act”). According to McKinsey & Company, the CHIPS Act was intended “to jumpstart American competitiveness in the semiconductor industry and reduce dependence on foreign suppliers” in the wake of the supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, has the CHIPS Act solved America’s semiconductor supply problem? Not quite yet! For starters, it takes years and billions of dollars to build brand-new state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing facilities (known as “chip fabs”). In the meantime, demand for advanced semiconductors has ballooned thanks to the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, which require thousands of the latest and greatest semiconductors to process mountains of data for AI applications.
Fortunately, progress is indeed being made. For example, in a recent Plant Services article, author Ryan Secard notes that “Arm Inc., a U.K.-based tech company, announced February 12 that it would spend $71 million to expand its Austin, Texas semiconductor campus to add a new lab for failure analysis. The move is expected to create 320 jobs on the site, where the company designs processors for mobile, cloud and data center hardware.”
The expansion is being enabled, in part, by a Texas grant of “$4.1 million from the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund.” Company leaders have indicated that “the expansion would go towards advancing the development of AI applications,” verifying the impact that AI data centers are having on the demand for semiconductors.
In fact, Arm Inc.’s “third-quarter earnings report, released February 4, indicated the company saw an increase of 26% or $1.24 billion in revenue on a year-over-year basis as it rides a wave of demand for CPUs and GPUs for use in data centers.”
Arm Inc. CEO Rene Haas claims the company is “expanding our labs, strengthening our capabilities, and creating hundreds of new roles — building the future of compute and AI in the U.S. and developing the next generation of semiconductor talent.”
While this news is very promising, it does highlight one significant issue: who will work these new jobs? Thanks to an ongoing skills gap issue that plagues every industry across the country and around the world, the supply of highly skilled workers simply isn’t meeting the demand for such workers. This is especially true in industries focused on advanced technologies, like semiconductor manufacturing.
Can the Texas talent pipeline supply all the workers the semiconductor supply chain needs? Only time will tell. Fortunately, manufacturers and educational organizations have not had to navigate this path alone.
To establish a pipeline of skilled talent for future semiconductor manufacturing facilities, training the next generation of semiconductor technicians is paramount. With help from an experienced training partner, like Amatrol, great strides are being made in Texas and elsewhere.
Amatrol’s unique combination of real industrial training equipment paired with cutting-edge eLearning curriculum can be used to create a modern semiconductor technician training program that will set up students and workers for success.
With over 40 years of experience, Amatrol remains the world’s leader in technical education. The experts at Amatrol regularly guide educational institutions and industry clients through the process of customizing training programs to achieve specific goals.
For more information about how Amatrol can help you inspire and train the next generation of semiconductor manufacturing workers, visit the Amatrol website to download the Amatrol Semiconductor Manufacturing Career Playbook.
