IEEE ELECTRON DEVICES SOCIETY WEBINAR SERIES

Working Successfully in the Semiconductor Industry

Presented by

Doug Verret

IEEE Fellow

TI Fellow Emeritus

Thursday, October 17, 2013

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

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Working Successfully in the Semiconductor Industry

Abstract: For those not fortunate enough to have worked as an intern, the experience of working in the semiconductor industry can be quite different than expectations. In general you have been taught many valuable things by your professors, but there are many more things that you were not told. Some of you will experience culture shock. In this webinar you will not hear about the results of a rigorous sociological or anthropological study on the semiconductor industry workplace, but rather a personal perspective of someone who has worked in the industry for three and a half decades. You will hear about the characteristics of the industry as a whole and how it affects the work life of a typical engineer. You will learn about common misconceptions and pitfalls of novice engineers as well as traits and characteristics you will need to flourish in this unique environment. For experienced engineers you will hear about things that you have probably experienced but may not have reflected upon nor internalized.

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Outline

I. What This Talk Is and Is Not

II. Semiconductor Industry Environment

III. Semiconductor Company Environments

A. Start-ups

B. Established Companies

IV. Getting Your Foot in the Door

V. Common Misconceptions about the Workplace

VI. What Companies Expect of Their Engineers

VII. What It Takes to Succeed

VIII. Summary

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What This Talk Is and Is Not

It is not the result of an academic sociological or anthropological study

It is not necessarily generalizable to all situations, cultures and environments that exist in the industry

It is not about how to survive in this industry

It is a summary of what one individual has learned and is learning from three and half decades of work in a large US-based, international semiconductor company interacting at all levels of the company and with people in competitor companies, consortia, foundries, customers, suppliers, professional organizations and business partners in all continents except Antarctica and Africa

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a personal perspective

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The Semiconductor Industry Today

From mid-year 2012 to mid-year 2013 the industry grew by ~8% to US $319B (World Semiconductor Trade Statistics)

More than 50% was in the Asia-Pacific region

IC’s represent 10% of the world’s GDP w/ an avg growth of 13.1%

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) nearly 250K people in the US alone are employed by the semiconductor industry and this number is growing three times faster than the rest of the US economy

In their latest research study, "Global Semiconductor Market Outlook to 2017", RNCOS' analysts forecasted a CAGR of 7.6% during 2013-2017. The robust growth in revenue is being driven by the growing demand for mobile devices, especially smart phones and tablets

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Two-year Snapshot of Semiconductor Sales

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The Industry tomorrow…

Historically the industry has been highly competitive, extraordinarily volatile, fractured and undisciplined and there are no indications that that will change in the future

The fundamental reason is that the manufacturing tooling and product design cycles are much longer than product market cycles

That, when added to the inevitable macro-economic cycles, results in the delivery systems being continually out-of-phase with demand

Hence the total market is inherently unpredictable

This reality has profound implications for the workplace

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Start-up Company Environment

Start-up’s (including internal start-up’s)

– Attractive to investors because of scalability and high risk-reward profile

– Attractive to engineers because of casual attitude, flexible hours and minimal structure

– Attractive to owners because it promotes efficiency

– Attractive to both owners and engineers because of low emphasis on conformity and enforcement of “rules” and more emphasis on innovation and creativity

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Start Ups continued…

Start-up’s (including internal start-up’s)

–Allows engineers to focus on problem solution and the technical enterprise tasks rather than on the company environment

–Employees span a relatively narrow range of disciplines

– It is a heady, dynamic, exciting environment, often chaotic, very enticing to young engineers, but with a high company failure rate

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Established Company Environment

Established Companies (Excluding Internal Start-up’s)

– Stabile environment, highly structured

– Established internal business processes and procedures

– Conformity emphasized

– Favor predictable business results over high risk ventures (risk-averse); innovation occurs in large part thru acquisitions and via comparatively small incremental steps

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Established Companies continued…

Established Companies (Excluding Internal Start-up’s)

–Robust technical infrastructure suited to complex products and complex product delivery system

–Employees span a broad range of disciplines (materials, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, power, chemical engineering, physics, finance, sales, marketing, test, software, etc) but trending toward less vertical integration with time

–Comparatively high business success rate

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Common to All Environments

Fast- changing markets

Increasing specialization

Increasing product and system complexity

Increasing importance of software and architecture choices

More system integration being done at the chip level (embedded software, analog, multi-cores)

Diminishing engineering knowledge half-life (≈< 5 yrs)

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Getting Your Foot in the Door

Before you can thrive in a company you first have to get hired

Interns who perform well at one or more companies have an huge advantage over graduates who have had no internship(s)

Having the right degree from the right university with the right GPA is not sufficient

Geographic flexibility is an advantage

Informal processes tend to pay off better than formal processes

Mistake by recruiters: not selling the company

Mistake by recruits: not selling themselves

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Selling Yourself

Timing of your job application is critical

– The optimum time is not necessarily shortly before or after graduation

– Are there actual openings?

– What is the recruiting cycle?

Get some help with your resume

– Always send a cover letter along with your resume

– “Saturation bombing” with resumes is not particularly efficient or effective

– Your resume gets you the interview; the interview gets you the job

Interviewing well is critical

– Interviewers want to assess three factors

a) competency, b) motivation c) compatibility

– Know the company

– Follow up

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Misconceptions and Mistakes

Thinking that:

– you know most or all of the technical information you need to do the

job, or

– all gaps in your knowledge will be filled via formal training

– the best technical solution to a problem is the best business solution

– solutions to business problems are unique

– you have finished your education

– data speak for itself

Vastly underestimating the importance of soft skills esp. communication skills

Dismissing the necessity of possessing business acumen

Not understanding the importance of relationships and networking

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What Tomorrow’s Companies Want of Their Engineers

Personal Qualities

– Open-mindedness Initiative Adaptability

– Creativity Tenacity Ability to Influence

– Flexibility Integrity

Advanced degrees (competency and relevance)

Total (cross-discipline) solutions

Software skills combined with lab experience (hardware)—very valuable=> Computer Engineer

Project ownership

Creation of customer value

Cost sensitivity

Employer Survey

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What It Will Take to Succeed

1. Learning to build on others’ work (it’s a complex world)

2. Being able to work in a team environment (especially heterogeneous teams)

3. Being able to communicate (write and speak) at all levels of the organization (managers, technicians, engineers, finance professionals, planners, attorneys, etc)

4. Having a strong sense of ethics and integrity

5. Acquiring gender and culture sensitivity

6. Staying up-to-date combined with being grounded in fundamentals

7. Having an effective mentor

8. Acquiring portable skills

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What It Will Take to Succeed…continued

9. Having the ability to think clearly about complex problems

10. Being innovative and creative

11. Learning how to “schmooze”

12. Establishing credibility

13. Establishing a work-life balance

14. Acquiring business acumen

15. Knowing all the pieces of the product delivery process

16. Cultivating working relationships with all the stakeholders (networking)

17. Being honest

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Summary

Top of the Pyramid –Credibility (competence, ethics, integrity, honesty)

–Ability to Influence (communication skills, networking, cultural sensitivity, teaming skills)

–Ability to Create Customer Value (networking, communication skills, business acumen, understanding internal processes, creativity)

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A Little Light Reading

Talking from 9 to 5, Deborah Tannen, William Morrow and Co., New York, 1994.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/an-engineering-career-only-a-young-persons-game/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=082913

http://engineeringmomentum.com/?p=385 (What Keeps Engineers from Advancing in Their Careers)

http://www.todaysengineer.org/2013/jan/career-focus.asp

http://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/Research/Advice/star_engineer.pdf (How to Be a Star Engineer)

http://serenityonlinetherapy.com/assertiveness.htm (Assertiveness and the Four Styles of Communication)

http://www.gsvc.org/docs/MentoringTips.pdf

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Supplementary Material

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What Is a Computer Engineer?

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Computer engineering is a discipline that integrates several fields of electrical engineering and computer science required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers usually have training in 1) electronic engineering (or electrical engineering), 2) software design, and 3) hardware-software integration instead of only software engineering or electronic engineering.

Computer engineers are involved in many hardware and software aspects of computing, from the design of individual microprocessors, circuit boards, and computers to circuit design. This field of engineering not only focuses on how computer systems themselves work, but also how they integrate into the larger picture.

Skill set:

– Microprocessor / microcontroller architectures

– Software including embedded software

– Real-time operating systems

– System design with emphasis on HW and SW integration

– Applications understanding and system limitations

Slide courtesy of Don Shaver

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Architecture development, design, and synthesis followed by circuit IP and backend

Algorithm Functional

Description

Floating Point

Model

Fixed Point

Model

Micro-

Architecture

Definition

RTL

Design

RTL Area/Timing

Optimization

RTL

Synthesis

Place & Route

Hardware

ASIC/FPGA

ASIC or FPGA

Vendor

Precision RTL

or Design Compiler

Manual

Methods

or

System C

VHDL/Ver

ilog

Matlab

SPW

C/C++

SoC Requirements

Specification

Communications

Standard UML/XML/

Manual

Document

Computer Engineers

Slide courtesy of Don Shaver

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Communication

An absolute “must” for explaining your results, coordinating schedules, influencing technical and business directions, gaining support, winning business, preventing missteps etc

Start with the basics: learn and use the vocabulary of the people with whom you are communicating

Learn to recognize & adapt to different communication styles

– Relating: people orientation vs. goal orientation

– Influencing: deliberative vs. assertive

Examples

– Communicating w/ assertive, goal-oriented people (e.g. managers): be prepared, organized, minimize small talk & speculation, be comprehensive—no loose ends

– Communicating w/ deliberative, people-oriented people (e.g. PR professionals): support intentions & ideals, avoid being short or reserved, avoid too many charts & figures, talk about key people and their goals, be supportive

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Gender

There has been a huge amount of literature published on communication styles by gender

Most of it is in the context of western cultures with a heavy bias toward the US

In an international context, there is a large national culture overlay (ethnicity) that interacts with gender such that it is difficult to distill communication styles that are purely and uniquely characteristic of a particular gender

Nevertheless, both men and women would both benefit from investigating the literature on gender-based communication styles

The importance of mastering communication in the workplace as a sine qua non for success cannot be over-stated

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Mentoring

The reason engineers fail or experience careers that languish has more to do with failure to integrate smoothly into the company culture rather than due to failures in technical results

An effective mentoring relationship can mitigate this kind of weakness

Random musings about mentors/mentees/mentoring:

– Mentoring is not something that happens to you. It is a sustained , reciprocal relationship between two individuals

– Mentoring is not about remediation or managing or sponsorship. It is about maximizing effectiveness and facilitating professional growth

– Seventy-five percent of executives say mentoring played a key role in their career (American Society for Training and Development)

– The key ingredient that goes into making a successful relationship is trust

– An effective mentor is not so much a teacher as a coach who facilitates self-discovery

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Mentoring…continued

More random musings about mentors/mentees/mentoring:

– Great technologists do not necessarily make great mentors

– An effective mentor is one who has achieved success in the organization, is willing to commit to a sustained relationship and is not in the chain-of-command of the mentee (trust)

– Some people have multiple mentors. I have had numerous and changing technical mentors over time

– Technical mentors are a different kind of mentor than an organizational mentor

– Technical mentors are focused on optimum technical solutions as distinct from the mentee’s organizational effectiveness and can be in the mentee’s chain-of-command

– Overlap is not uncommon. One person can be both a technical and organizational mentor, but the two mentoring processes are distinct

– A mentor is not the same as a sponsor

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Schmoozing

In my meaning, it is informal communication with individuals over whom you have no authority for the purpose of influencing them to deliver some information or service of benefit

It is one of the top skills of successful engineers, and comes naturally to those who have invested in a professional network (internal and external) and have a habit of communicating well

How does one go about influencing others to deliver something that has little to no direct or immediate benefit to themselves?

– Appeal to shared values (patriotism, loyalty, teamwork, ethics, friendship, etc)

– Appeal to corporate or department priorities

– Cash in your chits (favors you have done for others in your network)

Schmoozing is one of the qualities of “leadership”

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Employer Survey

Washington, DC—April 10, 2013—The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) released today a report, It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success, summarizing the findings of a national survey of business and nonprofit leaders. Among other things, the survey reveals that 74 percent of business and nonprofit leaders say they would recommend a twenty-first century liberal education to a young person they know in order to prepare for long-term professional success in today’s global economy.

Nearly all employers surveyed (93 percent) say that “a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than [a candidate’s] undergraduate major.”

Even more (95 percent) say they prioritize hiring college graduates with skills that will help them contribute to innovation in the workplace.

About 95 percent of those surveyed also say it is important that those they hire demonstrate ethical judgment and integrity; intercultural skills; and the capacity for continued new learning.

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