With the U.S. semiconductor industry experiencing a historic boom, it also faces a severe and worsening skilled labor shortage. With that in mind, Louisiana Tech University has now joined a national initiative to strengthen the country’s microelectronics and semiconductor workforce.
Director Arden Moore, at the Louisiana Tech Institute for Micromanufacturing in Ruston, says the school is joining several institutions and organizations in the South Region Node, which is led by the University of Texas at Austin. “We’ve probably got about a dozen institutes of higher education, so your typical four-year universities; but importantly, we also have a mix of community college and trade schools.”
As the Louisiana Radio Network reports, Moore is also quick to point out that fabrication requires people with a variety of skill sets. That fact, in turn, means partnerships must include different types of schools to make a successful production facility possible.
Moore elaborated, “You’ll also need technicians. You’ll need people who can go and put hands on the machine that they have been trained to maintain, to troubleshoot, to do things that are very well-suited for your community college or trade school-type preparation.”
The sharing of resources, adds Moore, will also play a critical role in this extended partnership, which necessarily will include training materials and training exercises.
“Things that can be developed and worked out at one place and then shared commonly amongst all the institutions and members; toward, collectively, who are stronger than the sum of their parts.” Three additional regional nodes of the National Network for Microelectronics will be launched in the future.
In a further statement, Moore also noted that this initiative “compliments Louisiana Tech’s growing partnerships with Radiance Technologies and Louisiana Economic Development to establish a semiconductor manufacturing facility in Ruston.” And he concluded, “Together, these efforts strengthen North Louisiana’s growing semiconductor ecosystem while supporting future economic growth.”
In looking at the big picture, research conducted by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) estimates that nearly 115,000 new jobs will be created in the U.S. semiconductor industry by 2030. Yet, 58% of those new positions, especially technicians, engineers, and computer scientists, risk remaining unfilled due to skills gaps.
The SIA report concluded that addressing this projected workforce shortfall will require expanding STEM education, strengthening regional training, attracting international talent, and leveraging policies like the CHIPS Act to boost domestic workforce development.
The CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law on August 9, 2022, and provides $52.7 billion to build local semiconductor chip factories and fund tech research. The ultimate goal of the legislation was to make the U.S. safe from foreign supply problems and compete with China.
