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This is explicitly why Boise State University, an otherwise middle-to-low-tier research university boasts such a high-quality materials engineering department.

This is explicitly why Boise State University, an otherwise middle-to-low-tier research university boasts such a high-quality materials engineering department. BSU actually hold some of their intro-to-materials-science courses at the Boise Micron fab so Micron employees can work towards said degrees without missing as much work to commute between the two locations. Edit to add: I've met a few people who are aware of US military supply chain rules, and assume it means "oh, chinese $doodad must be crap, that's why we don't give them to our troops", when the reality is just as you said. Supply chain bubbles can be massively disruptive, so its a real strategic blunder to outsource critical components to the country we have designated as our number one rival. I'm not saying we're set up for a trade war, but we are well past due to calculate the cost of increasing short-term profits. Is a quarterly decrease in operating costs from consolidating fabs worth risking a massive disruption when that single fab is knocked out? Given the volumes that even small fabs do, I argue that quarterly increase is not at all worth it.

dirtyid 3y ago
Current analysis projects US semi to face shortage of ~80k talent in next few years, ~300k+ in by decades end. This is reality pretty much in every semi producer countries, SKR and TW both have 50k-100k+ shortage with pretty developed talent pipeline. From everything I've read, current US+co short/medium term talent production won't be enough fill all the new fabs being proposed. Unviable due to operating costs which can always be subsidized, unviable due to lack of talent is much harder to address. Apart from training more, only way to plug gap is to poach talent from CHIP4 partners, which US has the money for. But I surmise it will get geopolitically ugly. For reference PRC after elevating semi to first-level dicipline in 2018 is pumping out about 30k IC graduates per year. They're still about 200k short, ~520k/720k out of what IC talent 2018 white paper estimated PRC needed for complete semi industry. This is PRC that graduates ~5M STEM with huge population to draw from that bias towards S&T in tertiary. Which leads to the other uncomfortable point that a complete semi industry is more than just fabs, there's a lot of critical semi supply chain stuck in TW / East Asia (SKR/JP) that's going to get disrupted anyway in event of conflict. I don't see any indication US is resolving to reshore the entire semi chain.
- nickpsecurity 3y ago
  This could be an opportunity for low-cost, educational groups to scale or partner up. Is there a list of degree or course requirements fabs are looking for? What programs would be necessary to meet that demand?
- bsder 3y ago
  > Unviable due to operating costs which can always be subsidized, unviable due to lack of talent is much harder to address. Or, gee, let's throw this out there: perhaps if the pay wasn't shit, people would go into the field. You know, just like computer science over the past couple of decades.
wyldberry 3y ago
There's not much prestige as a BSU alumni (and someone doing a masters part-time there), but I do distinctly remember chatting with materials graduate students and them mentioning that they chose BSU because of the ease of availability for equipment required for research and having Micron right there. There's a few good things that the university offers which is surprisingly strong. When i went back to prepare for a CS masters (military, self-taught) I was surprised at the quality of the undergraduate degree in preparing students for industry, and how quickly the security program was invested in (INL does a lot of investment here). All that to say: it's a pretty good school, especially for it's price. I only ever had one bad professor, and it was in the supply chain management department. And it was (is still?) the only raptor biology masters in the country.

dirtyid 3y ago

Current analysis projects US semi to face shortage of ~80k talent in next few years, ~300k+ in by decades end. This is reality pretty much in every semi producer countries, SKR and TW both have 50k-100k+ shortage with pretty developed talent pipeline. From everything I've read, current US+co short/medium term talent production won't be enough fill all the new fabs being proposed. Unviable due to operating costs which can always be subsidized, unviable due to lack of talent is much harder to address. Apart from training more, only way to plug gap is to poach talent from CHIP4 partners, which US has the money for. But I surmise it will get geopolitically ugly. For reference PRC after elevating semi to first-level dicipline in 2018 is pumping out about 30k IC graduates per year. They're still about 200k short, ~520k/720k out of what IC talent 2018 white paper estimated PRC needed for complete semi industry. This is PRC that graduates ~5M STEM with huge population to draw from that bias towards S&T in tertiary. Which leads to the other uncomfortable point that a complete semi industry is more than just fabs, there's a lot of critical semi supply chain stuck in TW / East Asia (SKR/JP) that's going to get disrupted anyway in event of conflict. I don't see any indication US is resolving to reshore the entire semi chain.

nickpsecurity 3y ago
This could be an opportunity for low-cost, educational groups to scale or partner up. Is there a list of degree or course requirements fabs are looking for? What programs would be necessary to meet that demand?
bsder 3y ago
> Unviable due to operating costs which can always be subsidized, unviable due to lack of talent is much harder to address. Or, gee, let's throw this out there: perhaps if the pay wasn't shit, people would go into the field. You know, just like computer science over the past couple of decades.

wyldberry 3y ago

There's not much prestige as a BSU alumni (and someone doing a masters part-time there), but I do distinctly remember chatting with materials graduate students and them mentioning that they chose BSU because of the ease of availability for equipment required for research and having Micron right there. There's a few good things that the university offers which is surprisingly strong. When i went back to prepare for a CS masters (military, self-taught) I was surprised at the quality of the undergraduate degree in preparing students for industry, and how quickly the security program was invested in (INL does a lot of investment here). All that to say: it's a pretty good school, especially for it's price. I only ever had one bad professor, and it was in the supply chain management department. And it was (is still?) the only raptor biology masters in the country.