Principal Package Competence Engineer

Semiconductor labor shortage throws off efforts to expand capacity. Global chip capacity is expanding rapidly, but workforce shortages could limit how quickly new semiconductor investments translate into supply. Sourceability Team October 16, 2026 min read time The U.S. semiconductor industry's push to grow domestic manufacturing is gaining momentum, but the labor shortage continues to hinder plans. A McKinsey and SEMI Foundation report estimates the U.S. could face a shortage of as many as 157,000 semiconductor workers by 2030. As the U.S. administration considers new tariffs for semiconductor imports, expansion plans by major chipmakers like Samsung, TSMC, Micron, and Intel could struggle to come online. While the U.S. runs into hiccups amidst its reshoring efforts, India continues to grow as an important part of the global semiconductor supply chain. Nexperia and Tata Electronics have announced a broad partnership spanning wafer fabrication, assembly, testing, and technology development. Nexperia plans to produce MOSFETs at Tata's upcoming 300mm fab in Dholera and assemble and test discrete products at its Jagiroad facility. This decision comes amid Nexperia's separation from its parent company late last year due to a Dutch court investigation and ruling. US chip expansion stumbles from labor shortage. The U.S. semiconductor labor shortage is manifesting as a significant bottleneck for the country's chip ambitions. According to a McKinsey and SEMI Foundation report, the U.S. could be short by as many as 157,000 semiconductor workers by the end of the decade. The gap is proving difficult to close, even as chip giants TSMC, Intel, Samsung, and Micron aim to bring new domestic capacity online to support AI demand. Per the report, just 3% of U.S. engineering graduates entering engineering jobs elect a position in the semiconductor industry. Further, nearly three quarters of chip employers report significant difficulty filling engineering roles. For decades, advanced semiconductor manufacturing expertise has been condensed in Asia, which is where the deepest talent pools remain. Contrary to popular belief, chip salaries in the U.S. often fall short of those in Asia, often resting between $127,000 and $187,000. South Korean chip workers have recently seen bonuses alone soar past $500,000 amid strike threats and a culture that puts chip jobs on a pedestal. Stateside, proposed fab timelines leave little runway for the industry to close the labor gap. Samsung aims to start production at its two Taylor, Texas, fabs later this year. The expansion is projected to bring roughly 3,500 chip jobs to the region. TSMC's 3nm fab in Arizona is expected to come online in 2027 after its timeline was moved up from 2028. Thousands of engineers, technicians, equipment specialists, supply chain professionals, and experienced manufacturing personnel are required for each new fab before announced capacity can be counted as reliable output. Unable to meet those demands with U.S. workers, chipmakers including Samsung and SK have been forced to temporarily bring experienced chip talent from South Korea to support fab ramp-ups. Recruiting foreign talent through H-1B visas has become costly and increasingly cumbersome, so chipmakers point to a domestic pipeline as the long-term answer. That pipeline is starting to take shape, largely at the level of academia. TSMC is recruiting from universities to fill roughly 6,000 positions across its first three Arizona fabs. Purdue and Arizona State University have launched semiconductor programs, with Applied Materials contributing $200 million to the latter's cleanroom center. In Ohio, Intel has committed $50 million to scholarship programs. More than 80 community colleges across the U.S. have launched or expanded their semiconductor programs since the CHIPS Act passed in 2022. However, programs like these require years to produce graduates, not considering the additional years of on-the-job learning needed to cultivate expertise, while fabs are trying to open right now. Ultimately, the ongoing struggle to grow a domestic semiconductor workforce is a prime example of why capacity investment alone can't solve constraints on fab expansion. With AI devouring capacity, delays in staffing new facilities could extend existing supply imbalances even as these investments are hailed as a solution to the massive demand for new chips. For now, new U.S. fab announcements should be treated as a long-term supply signal rather than near-term relief. Maintaining diversified sourcing options across regions and manufacturers continues to be a vital strategy in this market for the meantime. Nexperia and Tata expand India's chip ecosystem. According to a Reuters report, Nexperia has announced a partnership with Tata Electronics to manufacture and package chips in India. The agreement covers both front-end wafer fabrication and back-end assembly and testing, as well as technology and ecosystem development. Nexperia now plans to make a broad range of its MOSFET portfolio at the $11 billion 300mm semiconductor fab Tata is building in Dholera. The facility, described as India's first AI-enabled state-of-the-art fab, is designed to handle up to 50,000 wafers per month, with first production runs slated for December 2026. The two will collaborate on assembly and testing of Nexperia's discrete semiconductor products at Tata's packaging facility in Jagiroad. The deal follows a turbulent period for Nexperia after the Dutch government intervened in a September 2025 move the company said was meant to stop operations from shifting to China. Beijing responded by temporarily banning exports of Nexperia chips packaged in Dongguan, leaving global automakers facing a shortage of chips. Both governments have since reversed course, but the company remains geopolitically divided. Notably, Nexperia's current management board has endorsed the Tata agreement, per Reuters. Restrictions on products shipped from the Dongguan packaging site have become a clear example of how high-value assembly lines can be stalled when simple single-source components are disrupted. The Tata agreement gives Nexperia a second geographic option for both wafer production and back-end work, helping address that weakness. It's also a boon for India's chipmaking ambitions. The government's India Semiconductor Mission approved Semicon 2.0 earlier this year, committing roughly $13 billion to furthering its domestic chip industry. As of September 2026, the program has approved 12 projects backed by over $17 billion in combined investment. Tata CEO Randhir Thakur described the deal with Nexperia as a step toward building "a globally competitive, integrated semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in India." Sourceability Team. The Sourceability Team is a group of writers, engineers, and industry experts with decades of experience within the electronic component industry from design to distribution. Get updates and insights into the electronic component industry that you can't get anywhere else

The next challenge in power electronics. 5 October 2026 At Pretzl Connect 2026, Nexperia argued that GaN versus SiC versus silicon is the wrong question - and that engineers designing for AI data centres, robotics, and electrification need to judge power devices by how they behave in the application, not on paper. For much of the past decade, the case for wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductors has been made on switching performance. Gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) switch faster and waste less energy than silicon, and that efficiency story drove early adoption. According to Nexperia, that chapter is now largely written. "Historically, the perception was that you should focus on the technology that allows you to achieve the best efficiency," said Filippo Scrimizzi, Regional System Application Director at Nexperia. "The world is changing. It is not just performance, it's a mindset - understanding how the market is evolving." Rebuilding capacity. Before turning to WBG, Olaf Vogt, Director and Head of Product, Application Marketing and Engineering, addressed the company's position. Nexperia lost control of its assembly and test sites in Guangdong and Wuxi in October 2025 and has spent the year since rebuilding supply. "This is not an easy time for us, but we have a clear recovery plan, which is already in the implementation phase," said Vogt. Capacity is being significantly expanded at its sites in Malaysia and the Philippines, alongside new foundry and OSAT partnerships. Why the focus is shifting. Scrimizzi pointed to three converging markets: automotive electrification, the energy transition, and AI infrastructure. In data centres, rack power is climbing beyond 250kW, distribution voltages are rising and architectures are moving from single-phase to three-phase. Switching performance gains are well understood; the next gains, Nexperia believes, will come from thermal performance, power density, packaging, system optimisation, and reliability. WBG devices also enable new topologies. In a next-generation bidirectional on-board charger, a bidirectional switch allows the AC/DC and DC/DC stages to merge, removing the DC link capacitor and reducing bill of materials, at the cost of greater control complexity. With cars parked for more than eight hours a day, Scrimizzi said, vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-load turn the car into an energy store. The data sheet trap. The session's central argument was that headline specifications mislead. Nexperia compared its 650V Cascode GaN (Gen 1) with a competitor's e-mode GaN device. On paper, the competitor looked equal or better on every parameter: 25 versus 33mΩ RDS(on), 134nC versus 173nC Qoss, and lower thermal resistance. Yet in a 400-to-230V non-isolated buck converter running at 200kHz, the Cascode device achieved higher efficiency at higher power levels. Scrimizzi was careful not to dismiss e-mode: where switching losses dominate, it performs better. But where conduction and soft-switching behaviour matter more, the result reverses. "Before deciding on the final design, don't just trust the number you read in the datasheet," he said. "Test on the bench according to the final application requirements." SiC showed the same pattern. Nexperia's SiC MOSFETs and a competitor's were equivalent at room temperature, but between 25 and 175°C, Nexperia's conduction losses grew by around 1.6 times at 40A, compared with around 2.3 times for the competitor. Matching technology to the application. For AI data centres, Nexperia is lining up 750 and 1200V SiC MOSFETs from 17 to 80mΩ for power supplies, SiC JFETs for hot-swap and solid-state circuit breakers, and very-high-voltage devices above 3.3kV for solid-state transformers. Top-side cooled packages are key to fitting more power into a fixed rack form factor. Humanoid robots are an emerging opportunity for GaN. Each robot uses 25 to 35 body actuators, drawing 0.5 to 2kW per joint, with potentially 200 to 300 GaN switches per robot, according to Yole Group. Most run on 48V batteries, which Nexperia is targeting with its Gen 2 GaN in the 80 to 100V range. Higher switching frequencies mean smaller passives, smoother motor control, and compact drives inside the joint, while silicon still serves low-power joints. Optimisation, not adoption. Nexperia is positioning its integrated device manufacturer model as the way to industrialise WBG at scale. In 2026 its GaN portfolio is set to almost double, with around 60 SiC diodes and MOSFETs releasing, including a 750V SiC MOSFET family in industrial and automotive-qualified versions. Scrimizzi also argued that the package is now as important as the die. "Even the device can be considered a system," he said, pointing to top-side cooled and leadless packages as enablers of thermal performance. His closing message was simple. "We do not believe there is a single technology that will be the winner in the market." The next phase, in other words, is about application optimisation - and bench results, not datasheet tables. Keep up to date with the most important news. ERZIA upgrades environmental ratings of New Space amplifier line. Leicester launches AI student helper. 5 October 2026