The alliance is bringing together key stakeholders across industry, academia and government to address the growing challenges of both finding talent and upskilling the existing workforce.
To ensure these challenges don’t hinder industry growth at this critical time, the alliance is urging anyone with contributions to make to the semiconductor skills pipeline to get involved.
Deliverables will include competency frameworks tailored to the industry needs of specific geographies, and accelerated educational and training pathways, resources, and services that will help to build and support future talent pools.
The alliance is an evolution of Arm’s existing education model in which the company will play coordination role.
Community members will share resources, capabilities, and expertise in a flexible, federated and open model through a variety of forums. This will give teachers, researchers, aspiring or practicing engineers, and learners easier access to critical resources and unlock new opportunities to collaborate on projects such as joint bids for research grants. A number of projects are already in the works, for example:
- Arm, along with EDA partners, are working on new VLSI design educational resources using state-of-the-art EDA tools and IP
- New distance learning solutions in computer engineering and informatics are being developed from Arm and partners in industry and academia
- A global SoC design platform for academia with access to the latest semiconductor fabrication technologies from Arm and partners
You can read more about these and other projects in this blog from Khaled Benkrid, senior director, Education & Research at Arm.
To bring further diversity of talent into the industry, the alliance is committed to growing and supporting multiple routes into semiconductor careers, such as technical, vocational and self-study pathways. To achieve this, a key pillar of the alliance’s approach is to allow the flexibility to engage in a variety of ways, making the industry accessible to a broad range of diverse individuals, regardless of their prior education or experience.
Members of the alliance will create new opportunities for learners to gain hands-on experience through internships, apprenticeships, and co-op placements, as well as distance learning tracks on massive open online course (MOOC) platforms, where access is offered free to learners regardless of their financial means or geographic location.
Arm believes the industry is at a tipping point when it comes to the skills gap, and more cohesive, industry-wide action is required to truly have an impact.
The alliance aims to better align the industry around common goals, shared resources, and communities of best practice to tackle the skills gap that threatens progress today.
