To address talent shortage, chipmakers skilling engineering students
Semiconductor companies in India are accelerating their focus on campus engagement and building up fresh talent, even as the industry struggles with a lack of skilled professionals.
Companies like Intel India, AMD, Applied Materials and Tessolve are teaming up students and employees to work on real-life projects, establishing labs in institutes like IIT-Bombay, driving industry-academia partnerships to conduct research in core design and AI training and sponsoring students pursuing research.
Last month, AMD India launched a summer scholar programme for engineering graduates, under which 14 students from the Indian Institute of Science and the IITs of Madras, Bombay, Hyderabad, Kharagpur and Delhi are undergoing a 6-to-8-week residency programme at the company’s India R&D centres.
The students will team up with engineers to work on real-world projects.
“We also have several of our senior engineers working closely with a team of professors and researchers at IISc, Bengaluru to study heterogeneous computing including in the areas of core design, AI training, inference, and compilation. We sponsor students pursuing research in areas like low power designs, machine learning-based design optimisations, pruning and quantisation for ML models,” Fathima Farouk, HR head at AMD India, told ET.
According to a report by the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association, the country’s semiconductor sector is expected to more than double to $64 billion between 2021 and 2026.
Intel India is investing in early talent through
