India Inc steps up training efforts to close semiconductor skills gap

amd, Micron Indiaand LAM Research are among the companies looking to close the skills gap introducing new recruits technical campsmatching students with employees working on next-generation technologies, establishing research laboratories at universities and implementing mentoring opportunities.

Despite being a late entrant, the government is pushing for India to be a major player in the global semiconductor space. In 2021, the Modi government launched the Indian Semiconductor Mission (ISM) with an outlay of Rs 76,000 crore for semiconductor design, packaging and manufacturing units.

American chipmaker AMD announced in July 2023 plans to invest $400 million in India over five years. The government also recently approved investments worth $15 billion in the sector, including those by the Tata Group and US-based Micron Technology.

As the sector attracts large investments, companies face a major obstacle: talent shortage.

The Indian semiconductor industry faces a potential shortage of between 250,000 and 300,000 skilled professionals by 2027, TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship said in a recent report. AMD India seeks to close the skills gap by partnering undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students with employees working on upcoming next-generation CPU and GPU technologies. The California-based firm’s senior engineers are also connecting with engineering colleges regionally and nationally to create industry-aligned curriculum. “Currently, the areas we are focusing on upskilling include verification, physical design, design for test, microarchitecture, AI Modeling, LLM and other niche software skills,” said Jaya Jagadish, country director, AMD India .

Jagadish said there is also a need for engineers to specialize in designing secure hardware amid growing concerns about hardware vulnerabilities and cyberattacks.

Professionals with experience applying AI/ML to chip design are also sought, as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are increasingly used to optimize semiconductor design and manufacturing.

Additionally, the increasing use of the Internet of Things (IoT), automotive and consumer electronics is driving the demand for skilled personnel. integrated systems firmware engineers and developers.

Commit to young talent
In 2022, Semicon India Future Skills Talent Committee was formed to formulate a plan focused on skill and talent development to close the existing skills gap in the semiconductor industry.

Micron India has created technical boot camps to mitigate the skill gap in design and verification, firmware development, analog design, etc. for starting talents. The company has also created labs and scholarship programs, said Jhansi Potham, director of talent acquisition at Micron India.

“These boot camps can last between 6 and 24 weeks and are designed to onboard and train new college graduates in various technical aspects and processes,” Potham said.

Lam Research has signed a pact with India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru for wide deployment of Semiverse Solutions in key universities in the country after a pilot at IISc. Launched during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US in 2023, the Semiverse Solutions training program aims to work towards achieving the country’s training goals to develop talent in the semiconductor industry.

Through this initiative, Lam Research aims to upskill 60,000 engineers over the next 10 years in India. In the first wave of national implementation of this program in September, 20 universities were shortlisted out of the nearly 75 that signed up for the program.

“ISM will support the establishment of infrastructure and operational costs, IISc will ‘train the trainers’ at select universities, while we will deploy a dedicated team of employees to support expansion across the country,” said Vashist Kommunuri, chief talent officer, APAC. , Lam Research.