Bright minds wanted for chip design in Europe

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The predominant development and manufacturing of chips in Asia not only render Europe highly dependent on Asian production, potentially leading to delivery challenges. An issue of at least equal importance for Europe is the preservation of expertise and the education of the upcoming generation of chip designers. Harald Neubauer, an expert from the Chip Design Center at Fraunhofer IIS, possesses a deep understanding of these matters and potential strategies to address them.

www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en.html, Feb. 27, 2024 – 

"Developing chips calls for a lot of systems expertise – which is to say, knowledge about a component's specifications and how it works," Neubauer says. "If we contract this work out to Asia, there's a big risk that this knowledge – and thus the core of German engineering expertise – will simply leave the country and go with it." This unwanted transfer of know-how also hits Germany's strong SME sector and leaves Europe lacking the expertise to create vital innovations in the sphere of energy-saving and eco-friendly electronics. Neubauer adds: "From electric vehicles to heat pumps, we'll be using a lot more electrically powered devices in the future. Microchips have a major impact and can play an essential role in solutions to the problems confronting humanity. To this end, we need bright minds on the case in Europe."

In search of German engineers

"This calls for an investment not just in machines but in brainpower," Neubauer says, "but it's precisely this brainpower that's becoming scarce: not only are we seeing fewer and fewer young people decide to study electrical engineering, but the share of them studying microelectronics is also falling." This difficult situation is further exacerbated by the demographic fact that many engineers currently working in the field are due to retire over the next decade.

There is a striking disparity between young people's perception of electrical engineering and the reality. A survey conducted by the German Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies (VDE) supports this analysis: when schoolchildren doing advanced courses in math and physics were asked what they thought electrical engineers did, the answer they most commonly gave was: "They stand in front of a control cabinet and pull at wires,"reflecting the general sentiment. Consequently, very few of them wanted to study electrical engineering. "This is a gross misconception," Neubauer says. "Electrical engineering is a highly attractive profession with plenty of scope for people to choose their own path. It features a host of creative processes and is one of the drivers of the energy transition."

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