Fab Jobs

The shortage of semiconductor talent, globally as well as domestically, is expected to get worse by the end of the decade. To plug this expanding gap in skilled manpower, india is racing to reskill and re-deploy its massive engineering talent pool

- NIDHI SINGAL

DURING A RECENT interaction with students of an engineering institute, Navin Bishnoi, Country Head of fabless chip design firm Marvell India, was surprised at how keen the students were to know more about new-age subjects like AI and ML. But barely anyone was interested in the chips, or semiconductors that power them. Only when Bishnoi started going deep into AI applications and its underlying infrastructure that students start to realise the importance of semiconductors. “I realised that the exposure to semiconductors is lesser than other technologies. Engineering students are choosing the easier path to employability compared to semiconductor-hardware engineering, which requires a master’s degree and years of experience.”

The chips Bishnoi discussed are high-end ones. But as semiconductors are used in almost everything electronic around us, their demand has gone through the roof in the past few years. The global chips market, pegged at $600 billion in 2021, is also expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2030, per McKinsey. But experts say that current manufacturing capacity is just not sufficient to meet this booming demand.

Consequently, as new fabs—where chips are printed, and then taken through the ATMP (assembly, testing, marking, and packaging) process—are set up around the world and in India, even the demand for professionals qualified in electronics engineering and related fields is going to surge exponentially. And while the job profiles may sound too technical, most of the learning and upskilling in this industry happens while on the job.