Where will all the workers come from?
That’s a huge question in Arizona as the CHIPS and Science Act has started doling out billions of dollars in grants to Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). And it’s no secret that Arizona State University has become a big part of the answer—putting the most muscle into developing a new workforce of engineers and technicians.
So far the coordinated effort between the mega-university, government, community colleges, and industry has been no simple task.
The Big Idea: This spring some of the biggest CHIPS grants were announced by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and went to companies located in Phoenix. The CHIPS Act, passed in 2022, gives President Joe Biden $52.7B to boost U.S. production of semiconductor chips, the tiny electronic devices powering everything from your coffeemaker and cell phone to cars and military weapons.
Intel is set to receive $8.5B in direct funding and $11B in loans, which means an estimated 3K new manufacturing jobs in Arizona as the company increases its capacity there. TSMC is up for $6.6B in direct funding for the three Phoenix fabs (factories) that the company is building, creating about 6K direct manufacturing jobs. Between the two, the region is also expecting approximately 27K construction jobs.
The act authorizes about $13B over five years for STEM education and workforce funds through the National Science Foundation, plus additional money from other agencies. The workforce funding through the NSF and initiatives like the Commerce Department’s Tech Hubs is now flowing in earnest, though it has fallen short of expectations thus far.
In Phoenix, the federal and corporate investments are transforming the region into the epicenter of semiconductor manufacturing—and ASU’s presence factored into the reason TSMC, the global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, chose to locate its first U.S. manufacturing plant Phoenix.
“When making the decision to expand in the U.S., one of the considerations was access to world-class engineering talent to help us operate the most sophisticated semiconductor manufacturing technology in the world,” Brian Harrison, president of TSMC Arizona, said in a written statement.
ASU has been well-positioned to make such moves. Its president, Michael Crow, has a PhD in science and technology policy and has been steering the institution toward playing a central role in the CHIPS and Science Act for years.
‘A Multi-Year Effort’
The Details: As a result, ASU’s engineering school has ballooned to 32K students and the university has opened the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks and the School of Integrated Engineering, which will have a new campus near TSMC’s site in north Phoenix.
“This is a multi-year effort and we are sort of in that first year,” says Binil Starly, professor and director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks. “It begins with starting new academic programs that are aligned with what TSMC, Intel and others are needing.”
The jobs coming down the pike in Phoenix involve PhD-level engineers to nondegree technician roles and everything in between. Ramping up the recruitment of undergraduate students as well as creating associate degree and certificate training have been efforts most visibly spearheaded by ASU, though the region’s community colleges are playing a growing role.
Steven Gonzales, chancellor of Maricopa Community Colleges, estimates that 30% of the jobs that the employers are looking to fill are for bachelor’s and graduate-level degrees. That leaves 70% of the roles at the technician level.
“ASU has a role and responsibility in populating that research and development space,” he says. “Community colleges are more geared for the kind of volume of entry-level opportunities.”
The Need: The existing labor gaps are large and concerning, experts say. McKinsey & Company released research in May that identifies three pools that are “under pressure” in the semiconductor industry: construction craft laborers, engineers, and technicians. In 2022, McKinsey reports, job postings for semiconductor engineers and technicians totaled 25K in the U.S., which was twice the number posted in 2021.
“Each of these pools has its own pipeline and specialized skill set,” the McKinsey paper says. “Despite industry groups’ efforts to raise awareness and boost recruitment, the supply remains inadequate.”
ASU leaders intend to change that—and if they don’t, companies like TSMC will bring in foreign workers to fill the needs. Currently, more than 7K ASU students are pursuing classes in the microelectronics field and officials hope to steer more engineering recruits toward these interests. ASU is offering traditional bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD programs, as well as certificates, short courses, and “upskilling” classes, to make it easier for those who want to pursue a career change or need more training or credentials to advance in their jobs.
Also important in the effort are the tangible research opportunities available on ASU’s campus. As part of the CHIPS and Science Act initiatives, the Department of Defense awarded ASU almost $40M in 2023 to lead the Southwest Advanced Prototyping (SWAP) Hub, one of eight regional innovation centers across the country that are meant to fast-track hardware prototypes and transition tech to factories without the usual risks associated with supply chains. Partners in the SWAP Hub include other academic institutions, including the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of New Mexico, as well as industry leaders like Sandia National Laboratories.
“At the end of the day, many of these companies want to get the research done, but also they want to solve the workforce development across all scales—starting from the community college technician level to the PhD,” Starly says. “How do we drive more of these incoming students to a microelectronics track?”
Ramping Up Amid Shifting Projections
Working Together: In Arizona, as elsewhere, there’s a delicate dance around timing. There’s a sense that the region is playing catch-up to meet the workforce needs, but at the same time, semiconductor companies aren’t always hiring when newly-minted engineers and technicians from ASU or the local community colleges hit the market.
For example, Maricopa Community Colleges started offering a popular 10-day Quick Start program in 2023, in response to the CHIPS Act and in partnership with Intel. For $291 students can enroll in the 40-hour, two-week boot camp, and Arizona residents are eligible to have the tuition paid for by grant funding once they complete.
Graduates become certified entry-level technicians, with starting pay rates of about $28 per hour. The lectures and labs—with students wearing “bunny suits,” the head-to-toe apparel that technicians wear to reduce contaminants in the fab—prepare students for the technical work they’d perform under uncomfortable conditions. (The bunny suits are quite warm and technicians wear them for several hours at a time.)
In some ways, the program has seen success, especially in terms of diversifying the pool of potential employees, which is part of the intent of the CHIPS Act. Among the first cohort of graduates, 66% were people of color, 34% were women, and 53% were first-generation college students. However, officials at the college say they don’t know exactly how many of the students ultimately found jobs.
No courses are being offered this summer, though the district says it plans to continue the program. Its website warns that hiring for technicians has slowed. Gonzales, the colleges’ chancellor, says that’s mainly due to the semiconductor companies’ construction delays as they continue to build the fabs in Phoenix.
“If there’s been anything even remotely negative about the program, it’s been a perception that those students are completing it and maybe the jobs aren’t there right now,” he says. “That’s part of where I think we ran into some challenges. I think we’ve learned a lot of lessons about how, in terms of our own production of students, to make sure that it’s right-sized.”
The intersection between the advanced degree needs of TSMC and Intel and the entry-level technicians is where ASU and the area community colleges need to work together. For every engineer at the fabs, there will be a need for four technicians, Starly says—people who can maintain and fix the complex million-dollar machines, 24-hours-a-day. This kind of job often requires a two-year degree, but to sustain and grow the workforce, employees would ideally go on to get more training and advance to other positions, Starly says.
ASU would like the community colleges to offer the necessary associate degrees and build pathways for students to continue to four-year degrees at ASU after they’ve landed jobs. “How do you get them into the community colleges, get them employed, but then continue their journey after that?” he says. “That’s one of the things that we are still in discussion about, in the proposal stages.”
Shalin Jyotishi, senior advisor of education, labor, and future of work at New America, calls the CHIPS investments “a test of the frontiers of community college-university partnerships for workforce development.”
ASU is the natural fit to wear the many necessary hats.
“What has happened is ASU has sort of emerged as this coordinating entity that can support both the R&D and technology-based economic development needs of these investments, as well as the workforce investments,” Jyotishi says. “What remains to be seen is how ASU and the community colleges and other workforce training providers share in the responsibilities to meet that need.”
The Quick Start program is an illustration of what often happens between private industry and academic institutions, Jyotishi says. Employers approach community colleges about workforce needs based on their projections over the next zero to three years and then, of course, those projections change.
“Something might happen in their business where they decide to pull out, or they’re no longer able to create the fab,” he says, “and the college is left holding the bag.”
Getting Students Early
Focus on Recruiting: Everybody agrees that recruiting students, no matter what kind of training or education they’re going for, is critical. Semiconductor manufacturing may be booming in the region, but most potential entry-level workers don’t know what fabs do or how to become qualified to get a job there.
Maricopa Community Colleges estimates it will need to train up to 6K entry-level technicians in the next few years. Promoting the career path takes a bit of creativity and partnership with city government, other workforce training centers, and nonprofit organizations. It’s currently working with groups like Chicanos Por La Causa, which advocates for education equity in underserved communities, and Fresh Start, which helps women out of poverty and into economic independence.
The consortium also has used virtual reality to bring the fab experience to local high school job fairs. Because the fab clean rooms are restricted, limiting the opportunity for anybody to see them, the VR experience gives prospective students a taste of what it’s like to perform maintenance on a semiconductor tool.
“It imparts having active conversations not only with students, but their families to get them more comfortable with the idea that maybe there is an opportunity in the semiconductor industry,” Gonzales says.
TSMC has also invested $5M in an apprenticeship program to train 80 technicians over five years. The apprentices will receive paid on-the-job training and take community college classes along the way.
The Access ASU program, which includes a variety of college readiness resources for Arizona families, is another avenue that ASU and TSMC are using to reach K-12 students. Professors attend summer camps to introduce aspects of microelectronics at age-appropriate levels.
“The importance of K-12 cannot be underestimated,” Starly says. “That is where we have students of color and underrepresented students becoming aware that there is a pathway into semiconductors.”
Additionally, ASU offers Universal Learner Courses, which is another pathway for high school students or anyone who’s interested to take a full three-credit class online for $25. If the student decides to apply to pursue a degree after taking the class, they pay $400 for the course to count. It’s just another way to lower the barriers for future technicians and engineers to get the education they need.
Moving Forward: Gonzales believes that the working relationships between all parties are improving and the picture of what needs to be done and who is best suited to do it is becoming clearer.
“The lines got a little blurry there for a second,” he says. “It just organically occurs when you have so much investment coming in and employers are seeking solutions. They’d talk to us. They’d talk to ASU. They’d talk to the K-12 system. It took us a moment to find our collective footing.”
Even the federal agencies have never had to allocate grants of this magnitude before. Everybody is learning as they go.
“The scale of investments are so unprecedented in CHIPS, it’s not just at the local level where there’s going to be a need to think differently about collaboration and coordination around workforce development,” Jyotishi says. “Even at the federal agency level there’s been a lot of hiring to get the right expertise and right technical infrastructure in place to be able to do this work.”
Ultimately success will be measured on how many roles at Intel, TSMC, and other semiconductor manufacturers in Phoenix are filled by U.S. workers. Will TSMC feel the need to bring in expertise from Taiwan? If so, a big part of the promise of the CHIPS and Science Act will have cratered.
Administrators and officials in Phoenix are optimistic that ASU, the community colleges, and surrounding institutions can do their part. Production at TSMC is scheduled to start in 2025 in its first Phoenix fab and 2028 in the second. Defining workforce success is, perhaps, the simplest part of the whole endeavor.
“At the end of the day, these companies need trained employees,” Starly says. “They need to get that outcome.”