2023-09-13 07:00:10
The summer announcement from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has cast a chill over American semiconductor experts: the factory that the manufacturer is building in the state of Arizona will not open in 2024, as was initially planned, but rather in 2025. Due to a lack of sufficiently qualified personnel to install the necessary equipment on the site, TSMC delayed its inauguration date. And tries to bring Taiwanese employees to the United States to finish the work… at the risk of offending American trade unionists, entrenched behind the “made in USA” banner.
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For Bill Wiseman, one of the semiconductor experts at the consulting firm McKinsey, TSMC’s disappointment confirms his fears about a possible shortage of local talent. The White House has certainly brought investments in semiconductors back to Uncle Sam’s soil by promising 39 billion dollars (around 36 billion euros) in federal aid. But the workforce is not keeping up. The country suffers from a lasting lack of engineers and technicians capable of building and operating the “fabs”, these specialized factories which will house the sector’s clean rooms.
Forecasts for personnel needs in the country differ. Thus the recruitment platform Eightfold.ai mentions a crucial shortage of 70,000 to 90,000 positions. Mr. Wiseman, based on his experience in Taiwan, sees bigger. The unmet need by 2030 for advanced manufacturing, which includes semiconductors, solar panel factories, electric batteries, etc., is 300,000 engineers and 90,000 skilled technicians, according to McKinsey. A big shortage, to which are added 300,000 jobs for welders, electricians and other trades to build factories.
Several hundred students per year
Whatever the forecasts, professionals are already measuring the scale of the challenge to be taken up. “Manufacturing has been in decline for several decades, researchers and teachers are not pursuing careers in semiconductors”, recognizes Martin Schmidt, a former graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in the state of New York, where, precisely, several “clean room” projects are in preparation. Out of more than 1,600 master’s students at the institute, 600 today prefer to opt for computer science or optical tools, “much more popular”selon M. Schmidt.
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