3 ms·

What's the single best way to get involved in the industry? Should I bother getting a degree or just go straight for hands on manufacturing experience? Are ther

What's the single best way to get involved in the industry? Should I bother getting a degree or just go straight for hands on manufacturing experience? Are there any universities known for good programs?

ambrood 9y ago
Back when i was majoring in ECE at UIUC, we got to play around with Fab labs :). Yeah you'd pretty much need a advanced degree in EE or Physics to be a semi-conductor engineer I'd reckon.
- aphextron 9y ago
  Surely there are entry level technician jobs though?
  - avs733 9y ago
    For those you are typically looking at an as or even a bs. They look for strong reliability, precision and attention to detail, and hands on skills. Strong evidence of an ability to learn is also gold. Plus most of those guys work 3/4 12hr shifts a week...great schedule. No work goes home with you.
avs733 9y ago
It depends on what you want to do. Do you want to just monitor tools running production? Do you want to actively work on the tools in the fab? Want to be a process engineer? Be a device design engineer? Work in process development? Each is different...a college degree will never hurt and a master's is pretty normal for fab engineers and a PhD for process developers. As for schools it definitely depends in a similar way, but most top technical schools will get you recruited. A standout is Rochester institute of technology which has an undergrad degree in microelectronics.
pkaye 9y ago
I used to be in that industry back 20 years ago helping design one of the major machines still in production. Since then I've moved onto many different things. The best way to get into this field is get a materials science/engineering degree. Sadly there has been lots of consolidation among fabs plus most of them moved overseas so hard to get any hands on experience. They also have lots of technician roles in the fabs but with automation and improved reliability, maybe not so easy to get. Your best shot for hands on exposure would be a equipment manufacturer like Applied Materials or Lam Research.
peterburkimsher 9y ago
I studied Electronic Systems Engineering at Lancaster University in the UK, and graduated with a Masters in 2011. Now I'm working for a tech company in Taiwan, who do the next process step: dicing the wafers into individuals dies, and packaging the dies into chips. There's a trolley downstairs with over 1 petabyte - stacked high with trays of 16GB memory cards from the testing machine. Unfortunately I only managed to get a job writing monitoring software, equipment control drivers, and business planning software, so I don't get to handle the wafers myself. In my opinion, you'll need to learn Chinese if you want to work for the lithography companies, or work for the German/Japanese/Swiss companies making the machines that take in the FOUPs. If you want to simply be a technician, most of the migrant workers who operate the machines here come from the Philippines and get paid very little while working very long hours with no path to promotion (all the line managers are Taiwanese). On the bright side though, the technicians speak better English, so it's easier to talk to them directly! I enjoyed the circuit design/FPGA programming courses in university, but the projects to design ASICs usually take several years, so I couldn't get work experience thorough summer jobs (which is how I ended up in software).

ambrood 9y ago

Back when i was majoring in ECE at UIUC, we got to play around with Fab labs :). Yeah you'd pretty much need a advanced degree in EE or Physics to be a semi-conductor engineer I'd reckon.

aphextron 9y ago
Surely there are entry level technician jobs though?
- avs733 9y ago
  For those you are typically looking at an as or even a bs. They look for strong reliability, precision and attention to detail, and hands on skills. Strong evidence of an ability to learn is also gold. Plus most of those guys work 3/4 12hr shifts a week...great schedule. No work goes home with you.

avs733 9y ago

It depends on what you want to do. Do you want to just monitor tools running production? Do you want to actively work on the tools in the fab? Want to be a process engineer? Be a device design engineer? Work in process development? Each is different...a college degree will never hurt and a master's is pretty normal for fab engineers and a PhD for process developers. As for schools it definitely depends in a similar way, but most top technical schools will get you recruited. A standout is Rochester institute of technology which has an undergrad degree in microelectronics.

pkaye 9y ago

I used to be in that industry back 20 years ago helping design one of the major machines still in production. Since then I've moved onto many different things. The best way to get into this field is get a materials science/engineering degree. Sadly there has been lots of consolidation among fabs plus most of them moved overseas so hard to get any hands on experience. They also have lots of technician roles in the fabs but with automation and improved reliability, maybe not so easy to get. Your best shot for hands on exposure would be a equipment manufacturer like Applied Materials or Lam Research.

peterburkimsher 9y ago

I studied Electronic Systems Engineering at Lancaster University in the UK, and graduated with a Masters in 2011. Now I'm working for a tech company in Taiwan, who do the next process step: dicing the wafers into individuals dies, and packaging the dies into chips. There's a trolley downstairs with over 1 petabyte - stacked high with trays of 16GB memory cards from the testing machine. Unfortunately I only managed to get a job writing monitoring software, equipment control drivers, and business planning software, so I don't get to handle the wafers myself. In my opinion, you'll need to learn Chinese if you want to work for the lithography companies, or work for the German/Japanese/Swiss companies making the machines that take in the FOUPs. If you want to simply be a technician, most of the migrant workers who operate the machines here come from the Philippines and get paid very little while working very long hours with no path to promotion (all the line managers are Taiwanese). On the bright side though, the technicians speak better English, so it's easier to talk to them directly! I enjoyed the circuit design/FPGA programming courses in university, but the projects to design ASICs usually take several years, so I couldn't get work experience thorough summer jobs (which is how I ended up in software).