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Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

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Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#281

Post by vishnugupta »

eru wrote: post #263
chris_j wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I noticed it is that the two cities, though very close geographically, have an intense and not entirely friendly rivalry that goes back hundreds of years and continues to this day. See for example the History section of [0]. Although it's understandable that someone not familiar with the area could confuse the two places, friends from Sunderland tell that they are pretty offended when they are mistaken for…

Eh, close places often have intense rivalries over minor difference (that feel big to them), but to the outsider they look pretty much the same. Have a look at Greek and Turkey for example. Even their cuisine is nearly identical. Or look at the adherents of the major parties in many countries around the world. To avoid an American example: if you put a member of the British Tories or Labour into Japan, they will pret…

I recently learned that there’s a name for this phenomenon, “ schismogenesis”. It seems immediate neighbors adopt opposite stance just to be different.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#282

Post by [deleted] »

joe_the_user wrote: post #142
logicchains wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to the industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to the actual work needing to be executed. Look at Intel. It's a western company, but it famously fell behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay and conditions to its staff, so the best people left. The problem is hardware company culture, not Asian company culture. Apple's M1 i…

Look at Intel. It's a western company, but it famously fell behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay and conditions to its staff, so the best people left. As far as I know, working in a non-chip part of Intel in the 90s, the place was always an abusive sweatshop except maybe for some top people. And Intel isn't some failed from the start enterprise - they're currently third or so in a long, long…

[deleted]

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#283

Post by sudosysgen »

sdvsa wrote: post #279
sudosysgen wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but people able to be process engineers on the caliber of those at TSMC are likely to be able to get good SWE jobs if they really wanted to. We're talking about highly qualified jobs here, un Taiwan a lot of those are gonna have PhDs+.

People that create the factory flow, maybe. But I’d argue it’s a pretty different set of skills. People that run the flow, definitely not.

Some of those that maintain and make sure some machines are working correctly do have very advanced degrees, but I agree most aren't as qualified. However, these aren't the people the video is talking about nor the people that will be difficult to recruit.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#284

Post by jason-phillips »

mkl wrote: post #253
jason-phillips wrote: post #235

I worked at Samsung Austin Semiconductor for a decade. Samsung treated me extremely well and I really do consider them to be like family. Samsung is not like American semiconductor manufacturers. The organization is a bit more militaristic and that's not a bad thing, I liked the discipline displayed by fellow coworkers. I haven't worked at American semiconductor manufacturers, but know those who have. Their attitude…

What made you leave?

I worked there for ten years and decided that I needed to work for smaller startups using different tech stacks. It was a good move career-wise. Now I do consulting.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#285

Post by jason-phillips »

cxr wrote: post #280
jason-phillips wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sxr's posts about Samsung Semiconductor always strike me as being particularly bitter. The thing about chronically bitter people is that they're implacable.

The nice thing about the trick used in this comment is that it basically allows the person making it to just decide to believe whatever they want—and you hardly even notice it doesn't contain anything substantive about the real topic at hand or that it carries a personal attack as its payload, right there in the open but under the radar.

I'm full of tricks, cxr. You'll get used to it.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#286

Post by e63f67dd-065b »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #177
cxr wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't corroborate this at all. I come from a CS background. If you leave school and enter the workforce at SAS, you will be at a disadvantage insofar as you are looking for a workplace that you hope to learn something from or one that you hope reinforces good engineering practices. The semiconductor industry, from the vantage point of an experienced systems thinker, reinforces awful engineering practices. All the t…

This is like saying don’t go into medicine because you have to be a resident nurse along the way. Semiconductor fabrication is the most advanced engineering humanity has ever attempted, so you will reach your threshold eventually solving problems that might not have answers (depending on your role). Not everyone wants to do that though, and the world needs implementers and those focused on details. Pay? Could be high…

I’ve heard it describes as a nerd trap: salaries are low and working conditions meh precisely because nerds want to work on the most advanced engineering humanity has ever attempted.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#287

Post by pts_ »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #254
throwaway5959 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re critical of others for working at a place you have worked at? How does that work?

I’m talking about the hypocrisy of holding it against someone for having worked somewhere that you yourself have worked at, not the industry itself.

This person should be flagged for bias in interviews.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#288

Post by physicsguy »

eru wrote: post #264
marginalia_nu wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with the British is they frequently have stark rival differences in cultural identity based on which part of which city they live.

They will feel stark to the locals only. In Britain, people from both places will leave their shoes on indoors at home, praise the NHS, watch football and think the queen is fine.

> In Britain, people from both places will leave their shoes on indoors at home

This is by no means a universal thing here!

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#289

Post by pts_ »

klyrs wrote: post #130
logicchains wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to the industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to the actual work needing to be executed. Look at Intel. It's a western company, but it famously fell behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay and conditions to its staff, so the best people left. The problem is hardware company culture, not Asian company culture. Apple's M1 i…

Hot take, apparently: VHDL/Verilog developers should make 5x what JavaScript developers make, and not the other way around.

But...ad revenues, microtransactions etc. Solution - hardware full of ads and rentals eek!

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#290

Post by galangalalgol »

sudosysgen wrote: post #249
assttoasstmgr wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, we should encourage the new generation to all strive to become overpaid mediocre SWEs only in it for the quick cash, because the world doesn't have enough shitty food delivery apps. Hopefully I've painted this with a broad enough brush. There is more to a fulfilling career than money. In fact, an entire generation of SWEs who forgot the concepts of simplicity and efficiency, coding a never-ending avalan…

It's not really about quick cash. The truth is just that additional SWEs are right now more useful than additional fab engineers, in the US. It sucks to hear but it's true. There just aren't that many fab engineers necessary. Even TSMC employs a large part of SWE and IC designers, probably close to or more than process engineers. Fab engineers in the US are fairly disposable because their existence isn't based on mar…

This seems obviously true. It only seems unjust because we have this idea that tasks that are more intellectually challenging should pay more. That isn't how supply and demand work. If you need twice as many typists as are graduating, but only need a quarter of the radiologists that complete residency, well then typists will be paid far more than radiologists. We have an excess of people who want to work hardware, specifically because it is challenging, and that draws interest. So the interesting work is part of the compensation. We accept this as true for game development, it shouldn't surprise us for hardware, or embedded software. It doesn't matter that what you are doing is "harder", we need more bodies slinging fullstack generic buisiness logic than we can possibly educate it seems, so that is what will pay best. As for why we need that many people? I don't have any clue. It really seems like low-code should eventually replace the need for most SWE and drive down wages, but that has been a dream for decades and it hasn't happened yet.
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