Here’s how to get into the semiconductor industry without an engineering degree!

[Daniel Nenni]

Garrett Ainsworth - 安行遠Garrett Ainsworth - 安行遠 •Oxford | Fulbright | Cincinnati | Mandarin | YT and IG CreatorOxford | Fulbright | Cincinnati | Mandarin | YT and IG Creator

Here’s how to get into the semiconductor industry without an engineering degree!

There are now 3 semiconductor companies in the top 10 most valuable companies in the world (NVIDIA, Broadcom, TSMC).

Additionally, 5 out of the other 7 companies are heavily invested in chip design for their own AI, data center, VR, and cell phone technology (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta).

The semiconductor industry is the fastest growing and perhaps safest industry for future job security as all of our technology runs on more and more advanced chips.

Here’s how I got into the semiconductor industry without an engineering degree:

1. Identify area of interest: All semiconductor companies, like any other company have most functional roles, including business, HR, legal, IT, etc.

My areas of interest with my background are: Marketing and Supply Chain: jobs in these areas including: go-to-market, product management, marketing research, logistics, sourcing, procurement, and many others.

2. Learn about the semiconductor industry. I did this using three resources: 1. Books. 2. Audio books. 3. YouTube videos. Kindle and Audible have hundreds of great semiconductor books. My favorites are Chip War, Fabless, and Understanding Semicondcutors. There are also many excellent YouTube channels including Samsung Semiconductor Newsroom, TaiwanPlus, Crash Course CS, and The Engineering Mindset.

3. Develop technical skills. Learn what the engineers learn in their degree, that includes science, math, CS, and programming. The best resource for learning math from arithmetic to multi variable calculus is Khan Academy. They also have great science videos for chemistry, physics, and electricity. The best way I’ve found to learn CS fundamentals is the free CS50 course by Harvard. The best pay I’ve found to learn programming is Codecademy. They have an interactive code space where you take lessons and practice coding. I also recommend LinkedIn Learning for learning job skills.

4. Learn Mandarin. Taiwan is the semiconductor center of the world. If you speak Mandarin, you will be much better positioned to interact with clients, partners, suppliers, and co-workers in Taiwan. The best ways to learn are textbooks, apps, and living in Taiwan. Some of my favorite textbooks are the “A course in Contenporary Chinese” series and the “Integrated Chinese” series. My favorite Mandarin learning apps are Anki, ChatGPT, Netflix, HelloChinese, The Chairman’s Bao, and many others! But nothing beats living in Taiwan!

5. Get the job of your dreams in the fastest growing industry in the world!

 

[Paul2]

4. Learn Mandarin

Learn Taiwanese

 

[Barnsley]

So Semiconductor Industry start and end with the Companies in the news?

Appreciate not many here at the coal face and seem somewhat detatched from reality sometimes.

Depending upon the sector there are multiple opportunity to get into the "industry" it depends what you want

 

[hist78]

Garrett Ainsworth - 安行遠Garrett Ainsworth - 安行遠 •Oxford | Fulbright | Cincinnati | Mandarin | YT and IG CreatorOxford | Fulbright | Cincinnati | Mandarin | YT and IG Creator

Here’s how to get into the semiconductor industry without an engineering degree!

There are now 3 semiconductor companies in the top 10 most valuable companies in the world (NVIDIA, Broadcom, TSMC).

Additionally, 5 out of the other 7 companies are heavily invested in chip design for their own AI, data center, VR, and cell phone technology (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta).

The semiconductor industry is the fastest growing and perhaps safest industry for future job security as all of our technology runs on more and more advanced chips.

Here’s how I got into the semiconductor industry without an engineering degree:

1. Identify area of interest: All semiconductor companies, like any other company have most functional roles, including business, HR, legal, IT, etc.

My areas of interest with my background are: Marketing and Supply Chain: jobs in these areas including: go-to-market, product management, marketing research, logistics, sourcing, procurement, and many others.

2. Learn about the semiconductor industry. I did this using three resources: 1. Books. 2. Audio books. 3. YouTube videos. Kindle and Audible have hundreds of great semiconductor books. My favorites are Chip War, Fabless, and Understanding Semicondcutors. There are also many excellent YouTube channels including Samsung Semiconductor Newsroom, TaiwanPlus, Crash Course CS, and The Engineering Mindset.

3. Develop technical skills. Learn what the engineers learn in their degree, that includes science, math, CS, and programming. The best resource for learning math from arithmetic to multi variable calculus is Khan Academy. They also have great science videos for chemistry, physics, and electricity. The best way I’ve found to learn CS fundamentals is the free CS50 course by Harvard. The best pay I’ve found to learn programming is Codecademy. They have an interactive code space where you take lessons and practice coding. I also recommend LinkedIn Learning for learning job skills.

4. Learn Mandarin. Taiwan is the semiconductor center of the world. If you speak Mandarin, you will be much better positioned to interact with clients, partners, suppliers, and co-workers in Taiwan. The best ways to learn are textbooks, apps, and living in Taiwan. Some of my favorite textbooks are the “A course in Contenporary Chinese” series and the “Integrated Chinese” series. My favorite Mandarin learning apps are Anki, ChatGPT, Netflix, HelloChinese, The Chairman’s Bao, and many others! But nothing beats living in Taiwan!

5. Get the job of your dreams in the fastest growing industry in the world!

And commenting or reading articles and discussions from the Semiwiki.com will be very helpful.

 

[Paul2]

My recommendation would be to go for a non-university teaching institution, where they pump out junior RTL, verification specialists for design outsourcing industry.

It's much faster than a degree for someone with existing technical education. Tradeoff — no academic degree. You will get more employable, but no cred for places where they look what cookie cutter PhD work their workers did.

 

[Paul2]

Here is one of such https://www.tahoebd.com/

 

[Xebec]

A very good template; that's the strategy (minus Mandarin/Taiwanese ) that let me get into the Space Industry for a little while - my main passion.

Don't forget #6 -- read Semiwiki

 

[Daniel Nenni]

So Semiconductor Industry start and end with the Companies in the news?
Appreciate not many here at the coal face and seem somewhat detached from reality sometimes.
Depending upon the sector there are multiple opportunity to get into the "industry" it depends what you want.

Semiconductor design is an easy way in, especially with AI infused tools. The semiconductor ecosystem is massive, there are many doors in and many places to go once you get experience, absolutely.

 

[benb]

So many people mentioned Chip War I bought the audiobook. I've listened to the first few chapters. It's a solid history of semiconductors type of book so far.

@Daniel you should do an audiobook of Fabless. The only way I make progress on books these days is listening.

There are reasons to keep track of what conventional wisdom says you should do. But I got into semiconductors about the same time the US Bureau of Labor Statistics was downbeat on engineering, science, and very pumped on coding. I knew I didn't want to code at least. Software has since eaten the world, semiconductors included, but, a chip fab does not involve coding so much as following procedures and methodically solving mundane problems about equipment and devices.

If you've always been fascinated by computers, the hardware as well as the software, semiconductors could be a good fit. It also helps if you can at least tolerate being around chemicals. The semiconductor industry isn't considered a chemical industry, but it involves A LOT of chemicals.

 

[nghanayem]

This isn't even mediocre advice. It is downright terrible. If you want to work in any job in a fab you generally need a 2 year degree, strong/proven mechanical experience, or prior military service to become a technician or process tech. If you truly have no experience or education, then working for equipment vendors on a contract is your best bet and then trying to find a real technician job after a couple of years. If you want to be an engineer you can get in with a minimum of a BS, but it is hard, and with BS 0 years experience most companies flat out won't even consider hiring you. Best bet would be TI since they are sane and realize that your degree doesn't actually say anything about your intelligence or skill. You can potentially score a job with TEL, ASM, Intel, or Micron. But expect many doors to be closed until you get a MS degree, or ideally a PhD (outside of TI and a couple of specific sites like Intel NM, TEL Oregon, or TSMC Arizona). An alternative if you have a BS is to get a job in the subfab or utilities and then maybe work your way fab side over a few years at the previously mentioned companies or more likely after 5-10 years for most fab engineer jobs. You can also try to get a technician job with your BS and then after 5-10 years you can try for an engineering job at the folks who are more hostile to BS engineers (like LAM, AMAT, ASML, Hitachi, OnSemi, Infineon, Samsung, etc). But if you want an engineering job at someone like GF, at Hitachi, Kokusai, TSMC in Taiwan, or doing process development work, I wouldn't hold your breath. If you don't have a PhD, you won't get it.

Most of the semiconductor manufacturing industry are sticklers for qualifications, and it is valued more than experience. As a rule of thumb, if you think you are overqualified for something when applying for a semiconductor job, then you probably are. But this is the system working as intended because HR departments industry-wide love to hire people who are comically overqualified for a given position.

 

[Barnsley]

Semiconductor design is an easy way in, especially with AI infused tools. The semiconductor ecosystem is massive, there are many doors in and many places to go once you get experience, absolutely.

Even easier is go work in a mask shop, whether it be the front end optimising jobdecks/customer request or backend manufacturing doing process/inspection/defect repair/tool maintenance.

All are transferable skills.

Then move to a FAB if thats what you want and feel its a step up.

Why need to sweat on designing stuff.
Just work on producing the actual product.

 

[osnium]

This isn't even mediocre advice. It is downright terrible. If you want to work in any job in a fab you generally need a 2 year degree, strong/proven mechanical experience, or prior military service to become a technician or process tech. If you truly have no experience or education, then working for equipment vendors on a contract is your best bet and then trying to find a real technician job after a couple of years. If you want to be an engineer you can get in with a minimum of a BS, but it is hard, and with BS 0 years experience most companies flat out won't even consider hiring you. Best bet would be TI since they are sane and realize that your degree doesn't actually say anything about your intelligence or skill. You can potentially score a job with TEL, ASM, Intel, or Micron. But expect many doors to be closed until you get a MS degree, or ideally a PhD (outside of TI and a couple of specific sites like Intel NM, TEL Oregon, or TSMC Arizona). An alternative if you have a BS is to get a job in the subfab or utilities and then maybe work your way fab side over a few years at the previously mentioned companies or more likely after 5-10 years for most fab engineer jobs. You can also try to get a technician job with your BS and then after 5-10 years you can try for an engineering job at the folks who are more hostile to BS engineers (like LAM, AMAT, ASML, Hitachi, OnSemi, Infineon, Samsung, etc). But if you want an engineering job at someone like GF, at Hitachi, Kokusai, TSMC in Taiwan, or doing process development work, I wouldn't hold your breath. If you don't have a PhD, you won't get it.

Most of the semiconductor manufacturing industry are sticklers for qualifications, and it is valued more than experience. As a rule of thumb, if you think you are overqualified for something when applying for a semiconductor job, then you probably are. But this is the system working as intended because HR departments industry-wide love to hire people who are comically overqualified for a given position.

Do you think the emphasis on educational qualifications is true only for fabs in the US or is it true in Taiwan, China, Japan, etc?

 

[Barnsley]

Do you think the emphasis on educational qualifications is true only for fabs in the US or is it true in Taiwan, China, Japan, etc?

To work in a cleanroom in a FAB in Singapore you just need to accept the low pay.

 

[nghanayem]

Do you think the emphasis on educational qualifications is true only for fabs in the US or is it true in Taiwan, China, Japan, etc?

My understanding is it is even worse in Asia. But that isn't a completely semiconductor industry specific trend since East Asia has a glut of graduate students. So while it is worse, I don't know if it feels worse to the average engineer over there because it seems like a much higher % of the engineers get MSs and PhDs over there than in US. Likely due to the greater prestige boost associated with higher education in east Asia and how oversaturated I hear the job market is for young STEM people in places like ROC/ROK/PRC/JPN. Meanwhile US side, subjectively, around 5% of my graduating class went to go get a graduate degree (for context class size was over 200 at a top 30 Chemical engineering program). It also doesn't help that getting a MS in ENG is just throwing money down the drain in the US. Most non semiconductor companies treat a MS degree as the equivalent of 2 years of experience, so it is just better to get paid to get your 2 years of experience.

To work in a cleanroom in a FAB in Singapore you just need to accept the low pay.

Yeah, I remember back when I was applying for jobs there. It is rough, but I acknowledge I am biased by US pay. If Singapore cost of living was ROK low, sure pay is good. But Singapore is not anywhere near as cheap as the rest of East Asia. They did seem much more open to BS people without comical amounts of experience. None of that PhD+0 years experience or BS with minimum 10 years experience, and we will still probably not select you if you have the BS+10 years crap you see so often in the US.

 

[Artificer60]

Most of the semiconductor manufacturing industry are sticklers for qualifications, and it is valued more than experience. As a rule of thumb, if you think you are overqualified for something when applying for a semiconductor job, then you probably are. But this is the system working as intended because HR departments industry-wide love to hire people who are comically overqualified for a given position.

I'll second that. HR is the enemy. They are completely disconnected from the reality of the skills needed to do the job.

I got my foot in the door with a BS in Chem E but had 9 years working in material science R&D (small company where I got to do work my way up to the interesting stuff) and 3.5 years in HVM in a related industry. I'm not sure even that would have been enough without a lot of really fortunate circumstances that all lined up just perfectly to get my resume past the HR barrier.

I've since trained many PhD's, many of whom quickly became disillusioned once they realized they had been hired to work in a sustaining role and not doing the development work they felt their degree entitled them to. Every last one of them agreed they could have done the job just fine with a BS in engineering.

 

[Paul2]

It is extremely, extremely hard to get into the actual semi RnD on the process side, as it is where everyone wants to work in. Thus the 100+ people for 1 RnD position ratio.

A big portion of people will spend their entire career as technicians.

On the design side, it's extremely hard to compete on the design shop side with companies who hire fresh grad RTL designers for $250 per month.

On the other hand, you can trick the system and become one of them for a year or two, while you learn and get your first experience. And after that, you will knock on the door to Nvidia.

 

[nghanayem]

I'll second that. HR is the enemy. They are completely disconnected from the reality of the skills needed to do the job.

I got my foot in the door with a BS in Chem E but had 9 years working in material science R&D (small company where I got to do work my way up to the interesting stuff) and 3.5 years in HVM in a related industry. I'm not sure even that would have been enough without a lot of really fortunate circumstances that all lined up just perfectly to get my resume past the HR barrier.

I've since trained many PhD's, many of whom quickly became disillusioned once they realized they had been hired to work in a sustaining role and not doing the development work they felt their degree entitled them to. Every last one of them agreed they could have done the job just fine with a BS in engineering.

I wish it was only HR. But in my unfortunate experience I have seen a lot of BS engineers get treated as lesser second class engineers by their PhD counterparts. Sometimes the disrespect is blatant. Those people are often also jerks to the engineers with MSs. Fortunately I never had to work with someone like that, but I did see it far more than I would have liked. More often, the disrespect is FAR more subtle. I'm unsure if the negative behavior was a conscious or unconscious thing. But either way, it often only became truly apparent after working with said individual(s) for a while. It also feels like you need to accomplish far more to progress your career at the same pace. Such a dumb philosophy when some of the most accomplished engineers at Micron, Intel, and TSMC only have BS degrees... I give folks like TI that don't give a care in the world for what your degree says a lot of credit. A while ago they ran a study of their best engineers and highest level managers and to what should have been nobody's surprise found that there was no correlation with educational background. As a result, they stopped with the PhD obsessiveness. Every other manufacturing industry has known this information for centuries at this point, but for all the logic chips made by the semiconductor industry, this industry-wide phenomon is remarkably devoid of it.

It is extremely, extremely hard to get into the actual semi RnD on the process side, as it is where everyone wants to work in. Thus the 100+ people for 1 RnD position ratio.

Not as few R&D positions as you think if you know what to look for and where. And also many "R&D positions" aren't purely that either. After all, your fancy Xtor is worthless if it can't be made at a low enough per unit cost. But I am mostly talking about even for manufacturing engineer jobs. Heck, I know one tool vendor that would even hire on field service engineers (aka a technician with a fancy title) who had PhDs.

A big portion of people will spend their entire career as technicians.

I don't really get what you mean. People who want to be techs generally want to be techs and don't have any aspirations of becoming engineers (at least in my experience).

 

[Paul2]

I don't really get what you mean. People who want to be techs generally want to be techs and don't have any aspirations of becoming engineers (at least in my experience).

On the chemical industry side, there are surely not a few 6 year education people who do regular lab technician duties.

In fabs, in Taiwan, in 200X, there were really many solid state physics PhD working as just FOUP carriers.

 

[benb]

A lot of good points above. I hadn't thought about how someone like Garrett Ainsworth looks at semiconductors as being "how to get a job at Nvidia, Broadcom, or TSMC". There is so much more to the industry. Many supplier jobs, which are not second-class jobs (Applied Materials I hear is second-class). Many people start out in a supplier, build equipment for the fab, install it in the fab, and eventually move into a fab job. It's a solid path to knowing enough to not just be a drone.

And that's the second point, there are so many drone jobs in this industry. There are many reasons for this, the greater automation of 300mm fabs replaced autonomation (automation with humans more engaged in troubleshooting) with full factory automation, replacing many points where people who were observant could improve the process. Everyone used to be involved in process improvements, now only the select few are. More of the process was subject to routine adjustment, making routine improvement possible. Which helped with learning, job satisfaction, and not feeling like a button-pushing drone.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

A lot of good points above. I hadn't thought about how someone like Garrett Ainsworth looks at semiconductors as being "how to get a job at Nvidia, Broadcom, or TSMC". There is so much more to the industry. Many supplier jobs, which are not second-class jobs (Applied Materials I hear is second-class).

My brother worked at AMAT for 27+ years and he would not agree with you at all and I have friends that work there today who would not agree. Semiconductor manufacturing is hard work, absolutely. But we make some of the most amazing life changing products it is well worth the extra effort.