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Education Plus
Semiconductor industry beckons
V.RISHI KUMAR
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Of the 2.2 lakh students graduating as engineers every year, only 60 p.c. have degrees relevant to the industry
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The Indian semiconductor industry like the technology sector is faced with demand supply mismatch of talented engineering graduates who meet very specialised sector requirement. This is very pronounced in the areas of systems design, where Indian companies are very strong, according to industry experts.
According to the India Semiconductor Association (ISA) Frost & Sullivan report for 2006, out of 2.2 lakh students who graduate from engineering colleges every year, only 60 per cent have degrees relevant to semiconductor industry. While 3.5 million jobs are expected to be created by 2015 by the semiconductor and allied sectors, there are clear pointers that this demand supply gap is likely to continue.
Of the three distinct segments of the semiconductor value chain, India has a clear advantage in the systems design eco-system. However, its growth would depend on the ability to find talent, according to Jaswinder S. Ahuja, Corporate Vice-President, Cadence Design Systems. Mr. Ahuja, who is also actively engaged with the Indian Semiconductor Association, and heads the Cadence Indian operations, says the growth of systems design work and the ability to scale up the value chain would be constrained by the ability to find talent.
Curriculum change
Mr. Ahuja said as a part of the efforts to strengthen the education to meet the industry requirements, they are in the process of working with the government to bring about necessary changes in the curriculum. Apart from that, the effort is also now trained on educating students about the potential of the sector and big career opportunities. The focus now is on creating awareness and in generating interest in VLS (very large system integration), analog designs, and electronic design automation (EDA) tools and technologies.
Alliances
Referring to industry–academia associations, already many companies are making out efforts to partner engineering colleges. But this is not sufficient, he said.
Mentioning about Cadence University Programme, Mr. Ahuja said that already they have alliances with about 130 technical institutions across India to provide hands on experience with tools and technologies in electronics design through labs. This is being complimented by ‘train the trainer’ programmes and Finishing Schools.
The overall number of engineering graduates coming out is quite misleading as the percentage of those employable is low. This calls for a concerted effort through finishing schools and changing the basic curriculum at the graduate level and educating students about careers in the semiconductor industry.
These compliment the Special Manpower Development Project of the Ministry of Communication and Technology. Cadence has partnered with Veda IIT, a trainer of embedded software and VLSI designs, which has produced hundreds of trained professionals. The demand in the sector is such that those trained secure employment immediately. Managing Director of AMD R&D Centre, Dasardha R. Gude, who is also engaged in bridging technology skills, said that even AMD is planning to add couple of hundred people but is finding it difficult to spot right talent. Apart from offering post graduate courses and online education modules, Veda IIT is partnering with various engineering colleges both to train trainers and also engineering graduates.
Finding trainers
Training trainers is vital as there is dearth of people with such skills in the semiconductor business. To address this, we encourage researchers to spend time with students, Mr. Gude said. While there are different projections on semiconductor job opportunities in India, there is potential for tens of thousands.
A well-groomed designer gets absorbed immediately, he said.
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