United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) inaugurated its Semiconductor Equipment Academy on October 3, planning to train 600 equipment engineers in a year, according to the press release.
The academy is located at its Fab 12A P5 site in Tainan, Taiwan. The program is expected to be duplicated and implemented in UMC's other production sites in Taiwan and overseas, according to a company press release.
In view of the need for new recruits to rapidly acquire the skills of managing semiconductor equipment to achieve satisfactory performance, UMC's Semiconductor Academy is designed to be an on-the-job training (OJT) center for such a purpose.
The continuous expansion of capacity has increased UMC's demand for equipment engineers as new production tools have been installed in its production sites. At the inauguration ceremony, UMC president SC Chien said, "UMC sees it as a way to fulfill our ESG by collaborating with universities to provide semiconductor courses and provided internship and on-site practice opportunities for their students."
The Equipment Academy was established to provide new equipment engineers with not only a theoretical foundation but also hands-on experience to develop a more comprehensive and complete set of professional skills, according to Yu-chih Chuang, the senior manager in charge of Fab 12A of UMC. "With the future expansion of UMC's production capacity and the training needs of a large number of recruiting engineers, the Equipment Academy can help equipment engineers to understand the principles and functions of semiconductor equipment components after completing basic component training, and quickly shorten the gap between learning and application," said Chuang. "We also expect that engineers will be able to connect to the deeper level of machine operation principles and maintenance skills and build up their own maintenance skills in the future."
To address the problem of talent shortage, in addition to recruiting M.S. and Ph.D. students from science and technology-related disciplines in universities, UMC also welcomes talents from various STEM disciplines and cross-disciplines to join the semiconductor industry through active training, according to the company.
