Why You Need to Take This New ‘Semiconductor Essentials’ Course 

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Recently, Andy Shaughnessy and Nolan Johnson met with Soo Lan Cheah, the developer of a new IPC course geared toward PCB manufacturing professionals who have little to no knowledge about semiconductor manufacturing. With her background in PCB and IC design, Soo Lan brings a circumspect vision of these disciplines and how they are inter-related. You don’t need to know a lot of math to take this course, and you’ll come out with a much better understanding of the whole silicon-to-systems approach.

Nolan Johnson: Soo Lan, what is your vision for this IPC course?

Soo Lan Cheah: This course is an overview of the semiconductor industry and is suitable for participants with little or no knowledge about the semiconductor's technical subjects. We want the attendees to take away some of the key process steps of semiconductor chip development from the initial stages of design, to packaging, and finally to the market delivery. We will look at the history, from the invention of the transistor and how this lead to the invention the IC, the evolution across many decades, right up to these newer AI designs.

Attendees might be thinking they want to change over to the semiconductor industry, but they don’t have semiconductor knowledge, and it could be quite overwhelming if they were to take a full course on the subject. We just want to help answer some basic questions. We utilize proven learning strategies and industry-driven content to create engaging, effective, and efficient learning experiences, enabling participants to learn more in less time. As a result, employers will effectively and rapidly bring new workers to full productivity.

Johnson: What is IPC's goal in bringing more semiconductor awareness to their training courses?  

Cheah: The main reason IPC has embarked on this path is that they're expanding the training resources available to members. We have many government-funded projects that are creating a high demand for semiconductor and packaging knowledge. In Malaysia, for instance, there's a need for 60,000 designers and engineers. The goal is to bridge the skills gap. 

Johnson: How would this course material be helpful for those working in printed circuit boards? 

Cheah: Electronic systems, as a whole, must have ICs. You cannot do without them. Even if you're a board designer, you need to know a little about packaging and the IC to make better decisions about choosing proper packaging. Or maybe you need to know more about the circuit function. There is a relationship; they are all tied together. 

For PCB board designers, the benefit of the training is to know more about the IC packaging itself. As a PCB designer, you must know how to work with IC packaging. The packaging could be very traditional or very advanced. It's all related, and we can't do without it. If you’re a board designer, you need to have more information about the packages and the IC internals; it will definitely help you with your current job—or maybe a new job.

Johnson: Are you aiming this course at a specific region or is it more global than that? 

Cheah: The training was originally designed for the U.S. market. In fact, we have a new course meeting Mondays and Wednesdays starting September 9, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. We are in the process of signing an MOU with two local training centers in Malaysia, we are taking this class on a more global scale. I’m based in Malaysia, and we will offer this class to them as part of the local HRD Corp funding, and it will be much easier to run the training in Asia. This training is open to any participant, no matter where they live.

Andy Shaughnessy: IPC is promoting the “silicon-to-systems” approach. What should a typical PCB designer need to know about the IC side? 

Cheah: The main thing they need to understand about silicon is the packaging. When you look at silicon to systems, the systems we're talking about are the different levels of packaging. The first level is the IC package, which means that it could be 3D packaging at the very advanced end, or it could be something that is closer to what we have now, like a BGA. 

Shaughnessy: They won’t have to worry too much about the actual design of the chip, right? 

Cheah: No. After all the research and the work that has been done for the IC chip, the roadblock we see is that because the silicon itself is a lot more advanced when compared to the actual package. The bottleneck is actually in the packaging. In other words, the actual package is still way behind—maybe decades behind the IC technology. Now they’re trying to catch up with the packaging, and that's where the advanced packaging comes from. 

The bigger companies like Intel have newer technologies: TSV and 3D packaging, for example. They are very niche, very complex, and very expensive. The key point is that although there are some very advanced packages like 3D packaging or 3D-stack die packages, it's not affordable, and therefore, it's not common among PCB manufacturers.

Shaughnessy: Give us a little bit of your background. How did you end up doing both IC and PCB design? Usually, people do one or the other. 

Cheah: Yeah. It's very funny how it happened. The PCB design came first because I worked for Mentor Graphics (now Siemens) as an application engineer for about a year, but decided to move into the defense group that dealt with advanced electronic system design. That was where I learned the in-depth details about PCB design and signal integrity. That was almost 25 years ago, and that's how I started in the PCB design industry. 

More recently, I transitioned to managing engineering training programs and it was a technology transfer program that initiated the entire path toward lifelong learning. The original training program in PCBs began in Japan, and I was hired as their technical specialist to look after the program and help train the local trainers to take over the curriculum. 

I have an MSc degree in microelectronics. They needed someone at the training center to take over the curriculum for custom IC layout design from the Japanese IC design company. So, they assigned me to take up the Cadence Virtuoso software for custom analog IC design. I was involved in teaching this course for almost 10 years. 

Shaughnessy: You have a very circumspect view of both sides. 

Cheah: I'm just lucky to have this opportunity given to me. 

Shaughnessy: It's very rare to meet someone who is knowledgeable about IC in PCB design because they're usually guessing about what's going on over there. 

Cheah: I would very much like to help. I realized there are many professionals—or even fresh graduates—who do not have the information they need. I hope this course will be useful for professionals who wish to know more but don't need all the very mathematical details involved. They just want to have an overall concept. It makes sense that IPC is hosting and promoting this course so it’s beneficial to the PCB industry.

Johnson: Thank you very much for taking the time, Soo Lan. 

Cheah: Yes, thank you very much for inviting me for the interview.

To register for the September course, click here.