U.S. Semiconductor Workforce Shortage Reaching Critical Stage
The U.S. is on the brink of a new semiconductor manufacturing boom, leaving companies in urgent need of technicians to staff their new fabs and engineers to design the chips that these facilities will churn out. And unless things change, there soon may not be enough skilled chip workers in the U.S. to go around.
A top trade group for the U.S. semiconductor industry issued a report claiming there will not be enough skilled engineers and other workers to support their expansion plans, leaving it 67,000 workers short by 2030.
The way the semiconductor industry is growing, it will need a U.S. workforce of about 460,000 by the end of the decade, up from about 345,000 this year, according to a new study released by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and Oxford Economics.
Wayne Green, W2NSD, publisher of 73 Magazine, always used to tout the opportunities that an amateur radio license afforded hams. I’m sure that he’d be writing about this topic if he were still with us and editorializing today…Dan
An Introduction to the VNA and Vector Network Analysis
Most design engineers are familiar with tools of the trade such as voltmeters, oscilloscopes, signal generators, and spectrum analyzers. Some may not have had the opportunity to use a vector network analyzer (VNA). It’s the intent of this article to introduce VNA measurement and present a few typical applications.
What you’ll learn:
- What does a VNA measure?
- What can one do with the measured data?
- What devices are measured with a VNA?
Although written by a a company that makes engineering-grade VNAs, you might find this an interesting article to read if you just purchased a nanoVNA…Dan
DC-DC Converter Design Basics (Part 1): Buck Converters
DC-DC converters are widely used to efficiently produce a regulated voltage from a source that may or may not be well-controlled to a load that may or may not be constant. This article shows how DC-DC converters can be built using the Renesas SLG47105 GreenPAK programmable mixed-signal matrix.
DC-DC converters are high-frequency power-conversion circuits that use high-frequency switching and inductors, transformers, and capacitors to smooth out switching noise into regulated DC voltages. Closed feedback loops maintain constant voltage output even when changing input voltages and output currents. At 90% efficiency, they’re generally much more efficient and smaller than linear regulators. Their disadvantages are noise and complexity.