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Semi apprentices sought

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Semi Scenic starts taking on apprentices again as worldwide semiconductor market booms
One of Scotland’s leading high tech electronics players is putting down markers on the future by re-establishing its apprenticeship programme as a medium to long term solution to an increasingly worrying skills gap. Semi Scenic, one of the few remaining serious participants in the Scottish semiconductor equipment sector, will take on two apprentices to add to a headcount which has increased from 13 to 25 in the past year.
 
Based in East Kilbride’s Technology Park, Semi Scenic is riding a wave of optimism in the worldwide semiconductor sector, where sentiment indicates that the notoriously volatile industry may be entering a super cycle of sustained growth. Semi Scenic’s chief executive, industry veteran Don Nicolson, has recently returned from SEMICON Europa, the industry’s leading European forum held in Dresden, and he has been heartened by the sense of positivity he encountered.
 
Nicholson said: “I would like to thank NMI (National Microelectronics Institute) & SDI (Scottish Development International) for their invaluable support in promoting Scottish suppliers at the Dresden event. It was an outstanding success for us in terms of excellent contacts and potential for future orders, but what was really remarkable was the sense of optimism across the board.
 
“All the indicators are saying that growth in 2011 will range from flat, at worst, to steady increase of between 5% and 10%. I know that forecasts can be misleading, but everything at the moment points to 2012 continuing the upward trend.”
 
However, one of the major challenges facing Semi Scenic is sourcing the extensive skill sets required by engineers in an industry which is always at the forefront of technological advance and is now dealing in minituarisation technology so intricate that in many cases it is indistinguishable from magic.  Nicolson, who worked with Lam Research, the US original equipment manufacturer for nine years and built a career at NEC in Livingston and Hughes Micro at Glenrothes, said that despite the worldwide semiconductor boom, the outlook for the industry in Scotland could be hampered by a lack of the requisite skills.
 
He said: “Since the Silicon Glen cull in the last 10 to 15 years, when we lost major players such as NEC, Motorola and Freescale, it has been left to people like National Semiconductor & Semefab to carry the flag. There is still a lot of semiconductor talent out there, but it is employed in other sectors and is reluctant to take another chance on the industry.
 
“As a result, we have an ageing workforce – engineers are typically now in their forties and fifties – and no new talent, apart from those we train ourselves, coming through to provide the skill sets of the future.”
 
In order to reduce his reliance on a diminishing skills pool, Nicolson has embarked on a tailored programme with the respected East Kilbride Group Training Association, which takes students directly from school and tries to match them with relevant and suitable employers. Out of a shortlist of 12, Nicolson chose two, who will undergo a Modern Apprenticeship training with EKGTA to Higher National Certificate standard, then spend the next two years working with Semi Scenic’s qualified engineers while attending college once a week.
 
Nicolson said: “The apprentices realise that if they are successful, they will gain a set of skills which are not only transferrable but actively sought after all over the world. The apprentice we took on four years ago has just completed his training with our OEM partner in California and is now travelling all over Europe.
 
“What makes this apprenticeship stand out is the enormous range of skills which are required. As well as electrical and mechanical engineering, the apprentices have to learn how to deal with toxic gases, pneumatics, hydraulics and radio frequency power which generates the plasma used in chip manufacture.”
 
He said the apprentices will complete their final training in Silicon Valley in California before becoming fully fledged field service engineers, dealing with issues raised by customers all over the UK and Europe.
 
Nicolson said: “My generation of engineers is very conscious that there is no one coming up behind us to take the skills we have learned on to a new level. If we want these skills in the future, we will have to nurture them ourselves.
 
“We have great expectations of this apprenticeship opportunity and we would hope to extend it in the future. In many ways, the candidates we have taken on are not only our future in Semi Scenic, but the core of the future of the industry in Scotland.”
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