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Austin Community College Semiconductor Technology Program

Transcript

IN THE EVER-CHANGING SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY, THE CIRCUITS KEEP GETTING SMALLER, THE ROBOTS KEEP GETTING FASTER, AND THE WORKERS HAVE TO KEEP GETTING SMARTER. THESE MEN AND WOMEN ARE PART OF A NEW CLASS OF HIGHLY SKILLED TECHNICIANS NEEDED TO OPERATE AND MAINTAIN SOPHISTICATED EQUIPMENT AROUND THE CLOCK.

MAN: ...some of the h-modes on for f-max testing...

TO FILL ITS NEEDS, THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY IS GROOMING PREVIOUSLY UNTRAINED WORKERS LIKE JEFF CARROLL. A FORMER RESTAURANT EMPLOYEE, CARROLL NOW OPERATES SOME OF THE MOST INTRICATE AND EXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT EVER INVENTED. HE WORKS THE NIGHT SHIFT IN FAB 25 - ONE OF AMERICA’S NEWEST COMPUTER CHIP FABRICATION PLANTS - RUN BY ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES IN AUSTIN, TEXAS.

STAN HORNER INITIATED THE WORKER TRAINING PROGRAM FOR AMD.

Stand-up

SMITH: The world of high-tech electronics often seems remote and unattainable to millions of ordinary Americans who lack a college degree. And so there are important lessons in how someone like Jeff Carroll finds a niche in this promising world of tomorrow. Jeff and hundreds like him are getting in the high tech door through a special program created at Austin Community College .

IT’S PART OF A NATIONWIDE EFFORT, BRINGING INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION TOGETHER TO BUILD A HIGHLY SKILLED, MODERN WORKFORCE AND TO CATCH UP WITH THE DEMANDS OF THE NEW ECONOMY.

RICHARD FONTE IS THE PRESIDENT OF AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE.

CARROLL: There’s an old saying that when you see that brass ring opportunity, you’ve got to grab it. And that’s just what I did. And when I grabbed it, I was like, well, here I am, I don’t know, about 26, 27, and I’m waiting tables or I’m doing construction. I’ve got to get on with my life. I’ve got to do something.

SADJADI: ...trying to show you that these counters that we were just talking about in theory, they’re actually real things...

INDUSTRY’S ROLE IN THE PROGRAM INSURES UP-TO-THE-MINUTE TRAINING FOR JEFF AND HIS CLASSMATES. MANY OF THE TEACHERS ARE FULL-TIME INDUSTRY EMPLOYEES LIKE FARZAD SADJADI.

SADJADI: I take pride in trying to mix in a lot of my experience in to the subject matter, so that I can teach what will be more relevant rather than just trying to cover the whole book. So I talk about what I do. So I do it all day and then in the evening, I come in here and talk about it. So that makes it a lot of fun.

TRAFFIC BETWEEN AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE AND THE CHIP PLANTS RUNS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. JEFF OFTEN DRIVES STRAIGHT FROM SCHOOL TO HIS JOB – PUTTING HIS EDUCATION TO WORK...CHECKING SEMICONDUCTOR WAFERS FOR QUALITY.

CARROLL: At ACC, what I’m basically learning isn’t so much as how to run this prober but how to understand the data that the prober’s giving me. A lot of what I learn I can use over here, as far as understanding the data, data analysis. If it’s failing, you need to be able to trouble shoot the failing. And the only way you’re going to be able to do that is by knowing semiconductor architecture, C-MOS devices, knowing electronics.

THE SPECIAL PROGRAM AT AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE WAS BORN IN THE MID-90’S WHEN A BOOM IN AUSTIN’S SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY LEFT COMPANIES SCRAMBLING FOR WORKERS.

HORNER: At that time, we were thinking about how we’re going to staff this building here, this new manufacturing facility. Where are those people going to come from? We started looking around the country, talking to our recruiters. They’re saying, “Hey, we’re having to go further, it’s taking longer, we’re getting fewer people, it’s getting more expensive”. So it was also a wake up call for us.

AUSTIN’S CHIP COMPANIES ALL FACED THE SAME SHORTAGE OF SKILLED WORKERS, BUT FOR SEVERAL YEARS THEY DIDN’T ADDRESS THEIR COMMON PROBLEM TOGETHER. FRANK SQUIRES OF SEMATECH, AN INDUSTRY RESEARCH CONSORTIUM, EXPLAINS WHY.

BUT THAT RELUCTANCE TO WORK TOGETHER BROKE DOWN AS THE INDUSTRY BECAME MORE DESPERATE FOR TECHNICIANS.

HORNER: We had to have a work force. We couldn’t just sit back and say, “Well, the government, or the city, or somebody else is going to do this for us.” If it isn’t us, then who?

IN SEMATECH, THE INDUSTRY HAD AN INSTRUMENT FOR COLLABORATION. SEMATECH WAS SET UP IN AUSTIN IN 1988 TO HELP AMERICAN CHIP COMPANIES COMPETE GLOBALLY BY POOLING THEIR RESOURCES FOR JOINT RESEARCH ON PRE-COMPETITIVE TECHNOLOGY.

THE SEMICONDUCTOR WORLD WAS STUNNED LAST MONTH WHEN FRANK SQUIRES DIED OF A HEART ATTACK. IN HIS LAST INTERVIEW, HE EXPLAINED SEMATECH’S PIVOTAL ROLE IN UNITING THE INDUSTRY ON WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT.

SQUIRES: Because they all are struggling with the same problem, and they all, through their experience and cooperating at SEMATECH understand the power of cooperation. And that’s when we came up with this idea of getting together with AMD and Motorola and Applied Materials, and IBM and Texas Instruments, all of whom hire technicians in this city, to do two things. One was to speak with one voice to the education community about the future demand. And the second one was to assist them in developing a curriculum that was up to date and relevant for our needs.

SEMATECH AND THE MEMBER COMPANIES APPROACHED AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE WITH THE IDEA OF CREATING A SPECIAL PROGRAM IN SEMICONDUCTOR TECHNOLOGY TAILORED SPECIFICALLY TO THE INDUSTRY’S NEEDS.

FONTE: We sat down and worked on curriculum, and then we invested in a building; they invested a lot of equipment in the program. So they helped us get that program launched.

AUSTIN SEMCONDUCTOR COMPANIES AND SEMATECH PITCHED IN 2 MILLION DOLLARS TO BUILD THE FACILITIES AND TO CREATE THE PROGRAM.

IN FOUR YEARS, THE SEMICONDUCTOR PROGRAM HAS GROWN DRAMATICALLY – FROM 44 STUDENTS IN 1995 TO 500 THIS YEAR. SIXTY PERCENT OF THEM ARE ADULTS GETTING RETRAINED TO ENTER A NEW CAREER. BUT INDUSTRY SAYS IT NEEDS THE PROGRAM TO DOUBLE ITS ENROLLMENT BY THE FALL OF 2000.

AND THAT MEANS RECRUITING PEOPLE THE INDUSTRY HAS TRADITIONALLY IGNORED – RECENT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES LIKE TINA ALVAREZ. JUST THREE MILES DOWN THE ROAD FROM THE SPACE AGE WORLD OF FAB 25, TINA’S FAMILY RUNS AN AUTO PAINT SHOP. THROUGH BLAZING TEXAS SUMMERS, TINA HAS WORKED WITH HER MOTHER, BETTY, CLEANING THE CARS. BUT TINA PLANS ON LEAVING THE FAMILY BUSINESS TO WORK IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY.

BETTY ESPINOSA: I’m losing her. I’m losing her. And she’s going to go work in air condition, not in heater.

TINA WAS INTRODUCED TO AUSTIN’S HIGH TECH WORLD THROUGH A SUMMER INTERNSHIP AT ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES.

SMITH: But were you looking for electronics?

ALVAREZ: I didn’t even know what it was.

TEACHER: ...the metalization system we’ll use high vacuum pumps, cryogenic pumps usually, or ion sublimation pumps...

THE INTERNSHIP LED HER TO ENROLL AT AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE AFTER GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL.

SMITH: So how did you like the electronics?

ALVAREZ: As far as the classes, it was challenging. There was a lot of math and a lot of equation solving. Me personally, I like math and science, so it was no big deal for me. So I enjoyed the classes for that fact that it had a lot of math and science involved in it.

SMITH: Now has this changed your life, I mean, do you feel your life change? 

ALVAREZ: Yeah, I do. Mainly because now I know that I’m going to do something. It’s going to be a lot easier to get where I’m going.

ESPINOSA: I’ll miss her. I’ll miss those little hands, but you know, she’s taking a big step and doing good. She’s going to do something for her life. And it’s going to bring her money. Just like she told me. She said, I’m not going to flip burgers, Mom. And I said, all right. Well, she hasn’t flipped one yet.

ALVAREZ: I don’t want to just stop at the Associate’s degree. I want to maybe get a bachelor’s, a Master’s. And now, little by little, I see where I’m going with it. And I’m just going to let it go as it goes.

THIS SUMMER, AMD BROUGHT TINA BACK FOR ANOTHER INTERNSHIP IN FAB 25. BUT ONE OF THE INDUSTRY’S PERIODIC SLOWDOWNS HAS SOME PEOPLE WONDERING WHETHER THE ROLLER COASTER SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY WILL STICK WITH THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM OVER THE LONG TERM. STAN HORNER ANTICIPATED THAT SKEPTICISM.

HORNER: If we go in there and get this started and then quit, it could be the worst thing we’ve ever done because these are long term programs, we’ll set expectations in the local community that we’re going to be here – whether business is good or whether business is bad. And if we back out, we’re going to lose face in the community. So once we make this commitment, we’re committing ourselves for the long term.

FONTE: We’re not talking about, oh, just a mild flirtation by business with the college. We’re now talking about really a marriage situation. And I think that’s really different for community colleges around the country.

BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN BUSINESS AND EDUCATION MESH EASILY OR AUTOMATICALLY. BUSINESS WANTS WORKERS RIGHT AWAY, WHILE EDUCATION TAKES YEARS TO PRODUCE GRADUATES. AND THOSE DIFFERENT TEMPOS CAN STRAIN A RELATIONSHIP. FOR EXAMPLE, COMPANIES ARE SO IMPATIENT FOR WORKERS, THAT THEY HIRE STUDENTS IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR ACADEMIC PROGRAM. THAT UNDERCUTS THE GRADUATION RATE AND FRUSTRATES THE COLLEGE.

FONTE: The industry has to have the patience to wait for some workers to come through the whole program. But you know there is such a demand; there is no question that a lot of students after one year are getting jobs in the industry, and then they are coming back, but then they’re coming back on a more part time basis.

SMITH: Why don’t you go full time? Some people go full time, get the degree, and then they get into industry.

CARROLL: You mean go full time to school?

SMITH: Go full time to school.

CARROLL: Well, someone’s got to pay the bills, you know.

SMITH: Does AMD help pay for that college education?

CARROLL: Oh, yeah. They pay for the whole thing. I don’t even write a check.

BUT AMD FOOTS THE BILL ONLY IF JEFF CARROLL WORKS AT THE THE CHIP FAB FULL-TIME, PUSHING JEFF AND MANY OTHER STUDENTS INTO PART-TIME EDUCATION.

DESPITE SUCH WRINKLES, SEMATECH’S IDEA OF USING THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM AS AN INDUSTRY TRAINING GROUND IS CATCHING ON ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY.

FONTE: What we’re really doing .. is creating a national curriculum. So that the curriculum for what goes on for a technician in a fab in Richmond, Virginia, or Portland or Austin is all the same.

TODAY, MORE THAN 50 COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN 15 STATES OFFER THE SEMICONDUCTOR TECHNOLOGY DEGREE. NEARLY 5,000 STUDENTS ARE INVESTING THEIR FUTURE IN THE INDUSTRY’S PROGRAM. AND INDUSTRY IS INVESTING IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES AS A LONG TERM STRATEGY.

SMITH: Has there been an adequate payoff in dividend for AMD from this investment?

HORNER: At the current time, the answer would absolutely have to be, “No.”  And you have to keep in mind that the school only opened in ’95. So it’s a two-year, actually it’s a two-and-a-half-year curriculum, so the first graduates are now finally beginning to come out of that program. It’s going to take years for that investment to pay back, and we’re going to continue to put in.

SMITH: And you’re comfortable with that?

HORNER: Well, look at the alternative. Ah, the alternative is to not have enough qualified workers to continue to staff and support our operations. So, basically, our choices are limited. We can continue to pay exorbitant amounts of money to move people and recruit people into here, or we can put that money and use it right here at home, where we can help people improve themselves, get a career in an exciting industry, and everybody can win from that.

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