The essence of competition in the semiconductor industry is talent competition, with a talent gap of at least 100000 people in China

The development of semiconductor chips has always been one of the most fiercely competitive cutting-edge fields in various countries, from crazily applying for patents to restricting the export of equipment, but ultimately it is all a competition for talent.

On August 9-11, the 11th (2023) China Electronics Special Equipment Industry Association Semiconductor Equipment Annual Conference and Industry Chain Cooperation Forum, and the 11th (2023) Semiconductor Equipment Materials and Core Components Exhibition (CSEAC) were held in Wuxi.

With the acceleration of the development process of the semiconductor industry, chip talents have always been in a stage of "supply shortage". The current industry situation is that there is a shortage of talent reserves and high-end talents cannot be retained. CSEAC sub forum - "Semiconductor Talent Training and Campus Enterprise Cooperation Exchange Forum", inviting entrepreneurs and university representatives to "face to face" discuss the talent training and employment issues of semiconductor industry campus enterprises, and jointly discuss opportunities for campus enterprise cooperation and industry education integration development.

Large talent gap

Zhang Yuming, Dean of the School of Microelectronics at Xi'an University of Electronic Science and Technology, stated that integrated circuits will inevitably be the focus of technology and industry competition among major countries in the world for a long time to come. It not only involves economic issues, but also political and national security issues. Therefore, the country's inspection of the quality of integrated circuit talents and the competition for outstanding talents are the main focus now.

Zhang stated that China has entered a stage of high-quality development, and the demand for talent in integrated circuits has also reached a high-quality stage. However, currently only 13.4% of graduates have truly entered this industry, and the scale of high-quality students needs to be further expanded.

In simple terms, competition in the semiconductor field is a competition for talent. Whoever has enough talent will have control over the future. This is also why Ren Zhengfei has always emphasized the need for Chinese chickens to lay eggs in China, because even the most outstanding talents are meaningless to us if they cannot be utilized by us.

Currently, there is a shortage of at least 100000 semiconductor talents in China. According to relevant surveys, the number of employees in China's semiconductor industry was approximately 541000 in 2020. Divided by industrial structure, the number of IC designers is 199600, IC manufacturing is 181200, and packaging and testing is 160200. It is estimated that the demand for talent in the semiconductor industry in 2023 will be approximately 766500 people, with a shortfall of over 200000 people.

Even though 30000 graduates in the field of IC from universities enter the semiconductor industry for employment every year, the talent gap still exceeds a huge scale of 100000 people. Therefore, there are often news in the industry of multiple companies competing for an engineer.

Industry and talent structure tend to be rational

Driven by strong demand, in recent years, major universities in China, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, University of Science and Technology of China, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Xi'an Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University and other 985 universities, as well as well-known 211 universities, have been accelerating the pace of talent cultivation in this field, setting up schools of microelectronics or integrated circuits.

In response to the shortage of talent in the market and the unreasonable talent structure, major universities are collecting market data to cultivate industry elites as much as possible to fill the talent gap, and make reasonable adjustments to the talent structure.

Yu Qi, Vice Dean of the School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering at Chengdu University of Electronic Science and Technology, stated that the struggle in the field of integrated circuits is becoming increasingly fierce in China and some countries internationally. The manufacturing industry, design industry, and packaging and testing industry have seen that after years of development, the overall pattern of China's integrated circuit industry has reached a ratio of 4:3:3. From the perspective of developed Western countries, the proportion of these three types of industries is approximately 3:4:3. This means that after years of development and catch-up, the entire industrial structure has become more reasonable.

Mr. Wang Xinzheng, Senior Director of Public Relations at Shengmei Semiconductor Equipment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., said when discussing the evaluation system, the most important thing in the education process is to read more books on basic theories and conduct more experiments.

Mr. Wang Xinzheng added that it is important to read more basic theories during the student stage, lay a foundation, and also participate in corporate projects. The semiconductor industry master's degree may not necessarily consider core journals as a necessary condition for granting master's degrees, but of course, a doctoral degree is definitely needed. In this regard, the research department of the school should provide support, and the education regulatory department should also provide some guiding opinions.

The key advantage of China's semiconductor industry, in addition to its vast market foundation, is that with the rapid development of the domestic industry, the endogenous mechanism for talent cultivation is gradually forming, especially the growth of the entrepreneurial team.