I worked in semiconductor manufacturing. The hardest stuff is troubleshooting the state of the live system and performing root cause analysis. In my time at Samsung, we politely referred to the facility as "bootcamp for engineers". Indeed, I learned how to troubleshoot incredibly complex systems after just a few months of direct exposure. The #1 skill I learned was to not ever make an assumption about a thing. "Trust but verify" was burned into our souls.
Perhaps the best way to train the next generation is to create actual bootcamps on-site where young professionals get a chance to try and answer questions like "How did lot ABC123 end up with unexpected CU exposure while it was sitting inside a N2-purged storage area?" The only tools they get to use: historical logs of every event that occurred and a copy of grep.
In my experience, the deep PhD-style education was absolutely not essential for the day-to-day. Only a few people need to master the idea. Once the complex academia is converted into a physical reticle or CMP process recipe, you then need an army of people to reliably execute on that standardized vision.
I think someone coming into semiconductor manufacturing would have an easier time if they were dropped right into it on day one. The theory is nice but we found it to be mostly a waste of time when someone from manufacturing was calling us on the phone and complaining about a stuck lot.
Perhaps the best way to train the next generation is to create actual bootcamps on-site where young professionals get a chance to try and answer questions like "How did lot ABC123 end up with unexpected CU exposure while it was sitting inside a N2-purged storage area?" The only tools they get to use: historical logs of every event that occurred and a copy of grep.
In my experience, the deep PhD-style education was absolutely not essential for the day-to-day. Only a few people need to master the idea. Once the complex academia is converted into a physical reticle or CMP process recipe, you then need an army of people to reliably execute on that standardized vision.
I think someone coming into semiconductor manufacturing would have an easier time if they were dropped right into it on day one. The theory is nice but we found it to be mostly a waste of time when someone from manufacturing was calling us on the phone and complaining about a stuck lot.