[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                         STRENGTHENING THE U.S.
                       MICROELECTRONICS WORKFORCE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                           FEBRUARY 15, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-44

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                    
 
       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
       
                              __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-798 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------         

              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California           MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York                 STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                MIKE CAREY, OHIO
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
                                 ------                                

                Subcommittee on Research and Technology

                HON. HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, Chairwoman
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa, 
PAUL TONKO, New York                     Ranking Member
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                           February 15, 2022

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Haley Stevens, Chairwoman, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........     9
    Written Statement............................................    10

Statement by Representative Randy Feenstra, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    11
    Written Statement............................................    12

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    14
    Written Statement............................................    15

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................    16

                               Witnesses:

Ms. Shari Liss, Executive Director of the SEMI Foundation
    Oral Statement...............................................    17
    Written Statement............................................    20

Dr. Osama Awadelkarim, UNESCO Chair Professor and Director of the 
  Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization (CNEU) at 
  Pennsylvania State University
    Oral Statement...............................................    28
    Written Statement............................................    30

Dr. Tsu-Jae King Liu, Dean and Roy W. Carlson Professor of 
  Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley
    Oral Statement...............................................    46
    Written Statement............................................    48

Discussion.......................................................    55

              Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Ms. Shari Liss, Executive Director of the SEMI Foundation........    78

Dr. Osama Awadelkarim, UNESCO Chair Professor and Director of the 
  Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization (CNEU) at 
  Pennsylvania State University..................................    84

Dr. Tsu-Jae King Liu, Dean and Roy W. Carlson Professor of 
  Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley..........    86

 
                         STRENGTHENING THE U.S.
                       MICROELECTRONICS WORKFORCE

                              ----------                              


                       TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2022

                  House of Representatives,
           Subcommittee on Research and Technology,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., via 
Zoom, Hon. Haley Stevens [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] 
presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Chairwoman Stevens. The hearing will come to order. Without 
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at any 
time.
    Just a couple of notes that the hearing today is clearly 
meeting virtually. And of course the usual reminders to Members 
about the conduct of the hearing, keeping video feed on for 
Members as long as folks are present in the hearing. And 
Members are also responsible for their own microphones. 
Certainly, keep your microphones muted unless you are speaking. 
And finally, if Members have documents they wish to submit for 
the record, please email them to the Committee Clerk, whose 
email address was circulated, as always, prior to the hearing.
    And with that, good morning. Good early morning, very early 
morning to some of you, and welcome to this incredibly 
important and exciting hearing on strengthening the U.S. 
microelectronics work force. And a warm welcome to our 
distinguished panel of witnesses. Today's hearing is going to 
pick up where we left off in December from our Full Committee 
hearing on American microelectronics manufacturing.
    Today, we are focused on the challenge of building up a 
microelectronics work force in the United States of America to 
fill the new fabs and R&D (research and development) facilities 
that will be supported under the CHIPS for America Act. 
Investing in the semiconductor work force is certainly 
essential to our country's success as we re-shore American 
manufacturing and maintain the American lead in technological 
innovations.
    Also, American manufacturing is near and dear to the heart 
of many on this Committee and certainly yours truly. Many of us 
have spent time exploring manufacturing challenges. I do so 
locally through a program called Manufacturing Monday where I 
visit once a week suppliers and small, midsized manufacturers, 
geek out with their technology, learn who their work force is, 
start to understand what their challenges are, and seek to 
bring that back to Congress.
    Sponsoring and championing legislation to strengthen 
American manufacturing through the Manufacturing USA and 
Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program have been 
cornerstones of the work of this Committee and certainly this 
Subcommittee. And many of us are also a part of the Democratic 
Manufacturing Working Group that continues to usher in 
legislation to support the American advanced manufacturing 
sector.
    So it's no doubt that manufacturing is the lifeblood of the 
American economy. The CHIPS for America Act, enacted in 2020 
through an authorization, will help revitalize American 
semiconductor manufacturing through a whole-of-government 
approach. The authorization to the Department of Commerce is to 
create several key programs to grow domestic capacity in 
microelectronics. Funding for the programs included in the 
America COMPETES Act, which passed the House of Representatives 
earlier this month and is waiting for final passage. When 
implemented, the programs are estimated to create more than 
40,000 new semiconductor jobs, making today's hearing very 
timely.
    The CHIPS Act addressed the work force as a key component 
of our authorized programs. But today's hearing is also not 
bounded by what's just exclusively in the CHIPS Act. We're 
taking a higher-level look at challenges and opportunities to 
build and expand the semiconductor work force, certainly 
exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to have an 
equitable work force that seeks to bring in American talent 
from all corridors of this country, something that we have 
explored at length in previous Committee hearings as it 
pertains to the NSF for the Future Act.
    Semiconductor manufacturing jobs are good, high-paying 
careers. The semiconductor industry hires from a wide range of 
educational backgrounds--that's key, a wide range of 
educational backgrounds--with about half of the current work 
force holding an associate's degree. Semiconductor employees 
across all education levels make about 65 percent more than 
their peers in other sectors. These are also steady and safe 
careers with ample room for growth and widely transferable 
skills. Yet, we have heard from industry and educators alike 
about how students, veterans, other displaced workers just are 
not aware of semiconductor careers and so they do not pursue 
the training needed to enter this field.
    I am wondering today, and I hope we do hear today, how 
Congress can not only help raise awareness and inspire more 
workers to enter into this field but to also think about the 
programs, career and technical education, that are going to be 
essential to revitalizing this work force across all education 
levels to meet current work force needs.
    Today, we will also explore how to build and sustain more 
educational and training programs across the board, certainly 
some that Congress touches, as well as other public-private 
partnership programs and initiatives taking place at the 
charitable and foundation level. We certainly have an 
incredible and seasoned panel here with us today who have 
worked through many of the issues firsthand. Collectively, they 
have created community college and hands-on capstone 
certificates, apprenticeship, and veteran training programs, 
developed K through 12 outreach, and led cutting-edge research 
programs. Each of these components will be necessary to build 
the American semiconductor work force of our future.
    And as a reminder, folks, we invented this industry. We 
innovated this industry. And it is ours for the taking and to 
employ people in.
    So thank you again to our witnesses for being here today. 
I, among many of my colleagues, look forward to your insightful 
testimony.
    [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Stevens follows:]

    Good morning and welcome to this important hearing on 
strengthening the U.S. Microelectronics Workforce. And a warm 
welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses.
    Today's hearing will pick up where we left off in 
December's Full Committee hearing on American microelectronics 
manufacturing. Today we are focusing on the challenge of 
building up a microelectronics workforce to fill the new fabs 
and R&D facilities that will be supported under the CHIPS for 
America Act. Investing in the semiconductor workforce is 
essential to our country's success as we re-shore American 
manufacturing and maintain the American lead in technological 
innovations.
    If you know me, you know that manufacturing is near and 
dear to my heart. Since coming to Congress, I have sought to 
understand manufacturing challenges through weekly 
Manufacturing Monday visits, and I have sponsored legislation 
to strengthen American manufacturing through Manufacturing USA 
and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Last year, 
I launched the House Democratic Manufacturing Working Group.
    Manufacturing is the lifeblood of the American economy. The 
CHIPS for America Act, enacted in 2020, will help revitalize 
American semiconductor manufacturing through a whole-of-
government approach. It authorizes the Department of Commerce 
to create several key programs to grow domestic capacity in 
microelectronics. Funding for these programs is including in 
the America COMPETES Act, which passed the House of 
Representatives earlier this month. When implemented, these 
programs are estimated to create more than 40,000 new 
semiconductor jobs, making today's hearing very timely. The 
CHIPS Act did address workforce as a key component of the 
authorized programs. But today's hearing is not bounded by 
what's in the CHIPS Act. We are taking a higher-level look at 
challenges and opportunities to build and expand the 
semiconductor workforce.
    Semiconductor manufacturing jobs are good, high-paying 
careers. The semiconductor industry hires from a wide range of 
educational backgrounds, with about half of the current 
workforce holding an associate's degree or less. Semiconductor 
employees across all education levels make about 65% more than 
their peers in other sectors. These are also steady and safe 
careers with ample room for growth and widely transferable 
skills. Yet, we've heard from industry and educators alike 
about how students, veterans, and displaced workers just aren't 
aware of semiconductor careers and so don't pursue the training 
needed to enter this field. I'm wondering, and I hope we hear 
today, how Congress can help raise awareness and inspire more 
workers to enter this field.
    Awareness is not the only hurdle. There are currently not 
enough programs, across all educational levels, to meet current 
workforce needs. Today we will also explore how to build and 
sustain more education and training programs.
    We have an incredible, seasoned panel here today who have 
worked through many of the issues firsthand. Collectively they 
have created community college and hands-on capstone 
certificates, apprenticeship, and Veteran training programs, 
developed K-12 outreach, and led cutting-edge research 
programs. Each of these components will be necessary to build 
the American semiconductor workforce of our future.
    Thank you to our witnesses for being here today, and doing 
the great work you do, I'm looking forward to your insightful 
testimony.

    Chairwoman Stevens. And with that, the Chair is going to 
recognize my dear friend and good colleague from the State of 
Iowa, Mr. Feenstra, for an opening statement.
    Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens.
    And before I begin discussing today's hearing, I would 
first like to say how thrilled I am to be named the new Ranking 
Member of Research and Technology Subcommittee. I am truly 
grateful to Ranking Member Lucas for asking me to serve in this 
role. As I take this new responsibility, I look forward to 
continuing the tradition of my predecessors, Ranking Member 
Waltz, Ranking Member Baird, and working in a productive and 
bipartisan manner. And, Chairwoman Stevens, I hope that we can 
continue to build on our friendship and work together to 
deliver on the important matters before this Subcommittee, like 
the focus of today's hearing.
    Today, we will be examining how our U.S. work force can 
meet the current and future demands of domestic advanced 
manufacturing in the semiconductor sector. I appreciate each of 
our witnesses for taking the time to speak with us today and 
sharing their experience. I suspect every American has been 
impacted in some way by the global supply chain disruption for 
semiconductors or chips. Semiconductors have grown to become an 
essential part of our modern lives. In Iowa, they are nearly 
every--in everything that we do from our tractors to our semi-
trucks to our smartphones. With such an important industry, we 
are making a mistake in keeping so much of our manufacturing 
capacity offshore.
    The U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing 
decreased from 37 percent in 1990 to just 12 percent today. The 
CHIPS for America Act is a bipartisan, bicameral effort to 
reestablish America's leadership in semiconductor chip 
manufacturing. Funding the CHIPS Act should be the top priority 
for Congress. We can and should pass this funding cleanly. 
Instead, 2 weeks ago, the Speaker used the CHIPS Act, along 
with 12 other bipartisan SST (Science, Space, and Technology) 
bills, to move the partisan COMPETES Act through the House. A 
partisan superbill is not the way to get this important 
legislation done.
    Relying on offshore manufacturing has led to supply chain 
bottlenecks, a rising cost of materials, and a decrease of 
American influence worldwide. We must ensure that the United 
States is a leader in producing semiconductors to bolster our 
national security and decrease the influence of the Chinese 
Communist Party worldwide. China continues to make record-
breaking investments in R&D and the semiconductor industry. By 
funding the CHIPS Act, the United States can help to solidify 
international leadership in advanced manufacturing for years to 
come.
    The CHIPS Act will likely generate tens of thousands of new 
manufacturing jobs in both high-skilled and trade-focused 
roles. This comes as manufacturing companies are already facing 
difficulty finding skilled workers. Meeting and growing--
meeting the growing demand for the skilled work force will be a 
critical factor in successfully growing our semiconductor 
sector.
    Today, we will examine how the manufacturing industry, 
community colleges, and higher education institutes can work 
together collaboratively to solve these problems. I'm looking 
forward to hearing from our witnesses and the panel on the 
ideas that they have to build out STEM (science, technology, 
engineering, and mathematics)--the STEM pipeline in this space 
and how we should be thinking about leveraging existing 
partnerships. I am particularly interested in how we can 
capitalize on the expertise of our military veterans and 
encourage industry to tap into this talent pool.
    The CHIPS Act is a great step toward American investment in 
the semiconductor industry, but it's only the first step. The 
Committee should continue to consider how we are connecting 
Americans with these good, high-wage STEM jobs across our 
country. We are at a pivotal moment where Americans are 
thinking about a career change, and this conversation about 
workforce opportunities could not be more timely.
    Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back the balance of my 
time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Feenstra follows:]

    Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens.Before I begin discussing 
today's hearing, I would first like to say how thrilled I am to 
be named the new Ranking Member of the Research and Technology 
Subcommittee. I am grateful to Ranking Member Lucas for asking 
me to serve in this role. As I take on this new responsibility, 
I look forward to continuing the tradition of my predecessors, 
Ranking Member Waltz and Ranking Member Baird, in working in a 
productive and bipartisan manner. Chairwoman Stevens, I hope we 
can continue to build on our friendship and work together to 
deliver on the important matters before this subcommittee, like 
the focus of today's hearing.
    Today we will be examining how our U.S. workforce can meet 
the current and future demands of domestic advanced 
manufacturing in the semiconductor sector. I appreciate each of 
our witnesses for taking the time to speak with us today and 
sharing their expertise.
    I suspect every American has been impacted in some way by 
the global supply chain disruption for semiconductors or 
``chips.'' Semiconductors have grown to become an essential 
part of our modern lives--in Iowa they're in nearly everything 
from tractors and semi-trucks, to smartphones. With such an 
important industry, we are making a mistake in keeping so much 
of our manufacturing capacity offshore. The U.S. share of 
global semiconductor manufacturing decreased from 37 percent in 
1990 to just 12 percent today.
    The CHIPS for America Act is a bipartisan, bicameral effort 
to reestablish America's leadership in semiconductor chip 
manufacturing. Funding the CHIPS Act should be a top priority 
for Congress. We can and should pass this funding cleanly. 
Instead, two weeks ago the Speaker used the CHIPS Act, along 
with 12 other bipartisan SST bills, to move the partisan 
COMPETES Act through the House. A partisan ``super bill'' is 
not the way to get this important legislation done.
    Relying on offshore manufacturing has led to supply chain 
bottlenecks, a rising cost of materials, and a decrease of 
American influence worldwide. We must ensure that the United 
States is a leader in producing semiconductors to bolster our 
national security and decrease the influence of the Chinese 
Communist Party worldwide. China continues to make record-
breaking investments in R&D and the semiconductor industry.
    By funding the CHIPS Act, the United States can help to 
solidify international leadership in advanced manufacturing for 
years to come. The CHIPS Act will likely generate tens of 
thousands of manufacturing jobs in both high-skilled and trade-
focused roles. This comes as manufacturing companies are 
already facing difficulty finding skilled workers. Meeting the 
growing demand for a skilled workforce will be a critical 
factor in successfully growing our semiconductor sector.
    Today we will examine how the manufacturing industry, 
community colleges, and higher education institutes can work 
together to solve this problem. I am looking forward to hearing 
from our great witness panel about ideas they have to build up 
the STEM pipeline in this space, and how we should be thinking 
about leveraging existing partnerships. I am particularly 
interested in how we can capitalize on the expertise of our 
military veterans and encourage industry to tap into this 
talent pool.
    The CHIPS Act is a great step towards American investment 
in the semiconductor industry, but it is only the first step. 
The Committee should continue to consider how we are connecting 
Americans with these good, high-wage STEM jobs across the 
country.
    We are at a pivotal moment where many Americans are 
thinking about a career change, and this conversation about 
workforce opportunities could not be more timely.
    Thank you, Madam Chair and yield back the balance of my 
time.

    Chairwoman Stevens. Well, thank you, Representative 
Feenstra, and, again, welcome to the role as Ranking Member of 
the best Subcommittee on House Science, Space, and Technology, 
Research and Tech. Thank you for your introductory remarks.
    And at this time I would just like to take a minute to 
introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Ms. Shari Liss, 
the Executive Director of the SEMI Foundation. The Foundation 
focuses on workforce development programs in diversity, equity, 
and inclusion initiatives supporting more than 2,400 companies 
within the microelectronics industry. Prior to her role at the 
Foundation, she served as the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of 
the Ignited, a STEM teacher professional development 
organization and as a teacher and curriculum developer serving 
in a variety of positions with a focus on mathematics and at-
risk students.
    Our next witness is Dr. Osama Awadelkarim. He is the UNESCO 
(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural 
Organization) Chair for Building Innovation and Manufacturing 
Capacities through Advanced Technology Education, and Professor 
of Engineering Science and Mechanics at the University--excuse 
me, at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Awadelkarim also 
serves as the Director of the Center for Nanotechnology 
Education and Utilization (CNEU) and the National Science 
Foundation (NSF) Nanotechnology Applications and Career 
Knowledge (NACK) Resource Center. His education contributions 
focus on nanotechnology, workforce development, and on 
nanotechnology secondary and postsecondary education. His 
research interests are in electronic materials and devices.
    Our third witness is Dr. Tsu-Jae King Liu. Dr. Liu is the 
Dean of the College of Engineering and the Roy W. Carlson 
Professor of Engineering at the University of California (UC) 
Berkeley. Since joining UC Berkeley in 1996, she has taught and 
conducted research on semiconductor logic and memory devices 
and technology. As Dean, Dr. Liu has bolstered programs to 
support the academic success and well-being of both 
undergraduate and graduate engineering students. Throughout her 
career, she has actively engaged in efforts to diversify the K 
through 12 pipelines to engineering degree programs to support 
the success of women and students from underrepresented 
minority groups and first-generation college students and to 
increase the diversity of engineering graduate students and 
faculty.
    And we do have our Ranking Member of the Full Committee on 
here today, which I noticed Mr. Frank Lucas, and so I would at 
this time like to turn the--before we hear from our witnesses, 
and thank you for indulging their incredible backgrounds, we 
will hear from Mr. Lucas for an opening statement. We do not 
have our Full Committee Chairwoman, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice 
Johnson, with us, so we'll hear from Mr. Lucas, and then we'll 
go to witness testimony. So with that, Mr. Lucas, an opening 
statement.
    Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, and I appreciate 
the traditional courtesy and for holding this hearing this 
morning.
    I'm thrilled to welcome Representative Feenstra to the 
first hearing as Ranking Member of the Science--of the Research 
and Technology Committee. In his time on the Science Committee 
Representative Feenstra has already shown leadership on 
critical issues and offered legislation to help protect our 
research from foreign theft, expand research in the development 
of biofuels, and improving bioengineering. He understands that 
innovative science and technology are key to growing the 
American economy.
    I would also like to thank Representative Waltz for his 
service. He did a tremendous job developing a bipartisan 
legislative package to double down on our investments in basic 
research, improve U.S. research security, and set a strategic 
course for American science and technology development. I wish 
him well in his leadership role in the Armed Services 
Committee.
    Again, thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, for letting me start 
with that sidebar and now turning to today's hearing.
    I'm looking forward to examining our current semiconductor 
education and training pipeline and how we can meet the 
critical workforce needs of the U.S. microelectronics industry. 
Microelectronics are critical to how we live and work. They 
power phones. They make our cars safer, our homes smarter, and 
help us store and protect vital information.
    At a hearing our Committee held in December, we heard 
testimony about the factors contributing to global chip supply 
chain shortage. It is disrupting many industries and affecting 
consumers. We also heard testimony on the potential threat of 
countries like China controlling the chip market. Congress is 
now looking to make investments to increase the domestic 
production of chips to protect our economy and national 
security. It took the first steps to address this issue last 
year by passing the CHIPS for America Act, which authorized 
programs to advance U.S. research development, promote industry 
and government partnerships, and incentivize domestic 
fabrication of chips. The next step is to provide the necessary 
funding.
    While I don't agree with the Speaker's strategy to move 
chips funding through the House as a part of a massive partisan 
package, I think it's time to come together to address our 
future domestic chip needs as soon as possible, but our 
investments in microelectronics research and development and 
construction of new fabrication facilities will be wasted if we 
don't have the domestic workforce to support that industry. We 
must ensure we have a strong STEM workforce in the United 
States to meet the oncoming demand.
    If the CHIPS Act is fully funded at the current proposed 
level, it is estimated to create 42,000 semiconductor jobs. We 
need to fill them. That demand is even higher when we consider 
the full spectrum of workers needed to support that industry 
from skilled technicians and operators with associate degrees 
to those with advanced degrees. For example, we'll need 
scientists to achieve fundamental breakthroughs in 
microelectronics technology for us to harness the technologies 
of the future such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, quantum 
sciences. We will need engineers and software developers to 
package the microelectronics. We will need technicians to 
operate the cleanrooms at the fabs.
    Today's hearing should provide examples of innovative 
training models that not only train new employees but also 
retrain and upskill existing members of the workforce, 
including departing members of the military.
    I also look forward to hearing how Congress can capitalize 
on existing Federal investments through public-private 
partnerships and how we can provide our youngest students with 
the skills to become STEM-literate. I strongly believe that to 
remain competitive, attract job-creators, and meet our own 
needs for an evolving workforce, we need to take full advantage 
of America's full talent pool, no matter their ZIP code.
    I hope our witnesses will be able to provide the insights 
on how we can assure broad access to semiconductor education 
and development and solid retention of STEM employees in the 
semiconductor industry.
    I want to again thank our witnesses for taking the time to 
join us today and share their expertise. I yield back the 
balance of my time, Madam Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, for holding this morning's 
hearing.
    I'm thrilled to welcome Representative Feenstra to his 
first hearing as Ranking Member of the Research and Technology 
Committee. In his time on the Science Committee, Rep. Feenstra 
has already shown leadership on crucial issues and authored 
legislation to help protect our research from foreign theft, 
expand research and development of biofuels, and improve 
bioengineering. He understands that innovative science and 
technology are key to growing the American economy.
    I would also like to thank Representative Waltz for his 
service. He did a tremendous job developing a bipartisan 
legislative package to double down on our investments in basic 
research, improve U.S. research security, and set a strategic 
course for American scientific and technological development. I 
wish him well in his leadership role on the Armed Services 
Committee.
    Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, for letting me start with 
that sidebar. And now, turning to today's hearing, I'm looking 
forward to examining our current semiconductor education and 
training pipelines and how we can meet the critical workforce 
needs of the U.S. microelectronics industry.
    Microelectronics are critical to how we live and work. They 
power our phones, make our cars safer, our homes smarter, and 
help us store and protect vital information.
    At a hearing our Committee held in December, we heard 
testimony about the factors contributing to a global chip 
supply chain shortage that is disrupting many industries and 
affecting consumers. We also heard testimony on the potential 
threat of countries like China controlling the chip market.
    Congress is now looking to make investments to increase the 
domestic production of chips to protect our economic and 
national security. It took the first steps to address this 
issue last year by passing the CHIPS for America Act, which 
authorized programs to advance U.S. research and development, 
promote industry and government partnerships, and incentivize 
domestic fabrication of chips.
    The next step is to provide the necessary funding. While I 
don't agree with the Speaker's strategy to move Chips funding 
through the House as part of a massive partisan package, I 
think it's time to come together to address our future domestic 
chip needs as soon as possible.
    But our investments in microelectronics research and 
development and construction of new fabrication facilities will 
be wasted if we don't have the domestic workforce to support 
the industry. We must ensure we have a strong STEM workforce in 
the United States to meet the oncoming demand. If the CHIPS Act 
is fully funded at the current proposed level, it is estimated 
to create 42,000 new semiconductor jobs.
    We need to fill them. That demand is even higher when we 
consider the full spectrum of workers needed to support this 
industry--from skilled technicians and operators with associate 
degrees to those with advanced degrees. For example:
    We will need scientists to achieve fundamental 
breakthroughs in microelectronics technology for us to harness 
the technologies of the future, such as artificial 
intelligence, 5G, and quantum sciences.
    We will need engineers and software developers to package 
the microelectronics. We will need technicians to operate the 
cleanrooms at the fabs.
    Today's hearing should provide examples of innovative 
training models that not only train new employees, but also 
retrain and upskill existing members of the workforce, 
including departing members of the military.
    I also look forward to hearing how Congress can capitalize 
on existing federal investments through public-private 
partnerships and how we can provide our youngest students with 
the skills to become STEM-literate.
    I strongly believe that to remain competitive, attract job 
creators, and meet our own needs for an evolving workforce, we 
need to take full advantage of America's full talent pool, no 
matter their zip code. I hope our witnesses will be able to 
provide insights on how we can ensure broad access to 
semiconductor education and employment and solid retention of 
STEM employees in the semiconductor industry.
    I want to again thank our witnesses for taking the time to 
join us today and share their expertise. I yield back the 
balance of my time.

     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Thank you Chairwoman Stevens and Ranking Member Feenstra 
for holding this morning's hearing on strengthening our 
nation's microelectronics workforce. I want to welcome and 
thank the expert witnesses for their testimony.
    We spend a lot of time in the Science Committee focusing on 
the challenges to growing a skilled STEM workforce for the 21st 
Century. I am proud that many provisions in the America 
COMPETES Act, which passed the House earlier this month, would 
help address some of those challenges. While we need to develop 
the STEM pipeline across all fields, there are particular 
fields for which the gap between supply and demand is 
especially acute. Microelectronics is one such field.
    The semiconductor industry is no stranger to labor supply 
challenges. In 2018, the Semiconductor Industry Association 
noted there were thousands of unfilled technical positions 
across the country. This labor shortage has only worsened with 
the pandemic. In addition, Congress is now considering 
providing $52 billion in funding to bring semiconductor 
manufacturing back to our shores. If fully funded, the Chips 
for America Act would create an estimated 42 thousand 
additional semiconductor-related jobs. Addressing these 
workforce challenges is going to require new investments and 
partnerships.
    One of the major challenges is recruiting a diverse 
workforce. In 2021, the Semiconductor Industry Association 
reported that Black employees held 4% of all jobs in the 
semiconductor workforce, compared to 12% across all employment 
sectors. Hispanic employees make up 13% of the semiconductor 
workforce, compared to 18% across all sectors. And fewer than 
one quarter of employees in the semiconductor workforce are 
women. The semiconductor industry acknowledges these challenges 
and has worked to increase representation through 
apprenticeship models and engagement. I am pleased that we have 
a representative from SEMI here today to discuss these 
programs.
    Creating a capable microelectronics workforce also requires 
hands-on learning. Several of our witnesses today have 
implemented innovative programs to offer access to hands-on 
learning tools for technical and community college students. If 
these programs prove successful, we must scale them up. 
Distance learning tools and virtual reality technologies may 
also offer solutions to increase access.
    I look forward to hearing our witnesses' insights on how we 
can grow and diversify the U.S. semiconductor workforce, 
including through new public-private partnerships. I also look 
forward to continuing the bipartisan work of this committee to 
advance bold policies to address these challenges.

    Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you, Ranking Member Lucas. 
There's a lot of dogging of Congress, and one of the beautiful 
things is that people all across the country and their elected 
representation can come together in hearings like this and talk 
about such important topics: workforce development, workforce 
training, and an industry of scale that we are eager to grab 
hold of. So I hope all of us recognize and take away from this 
hearing what a ringing and resounding moment this is for our 
country.
    So with this, we're going to move to witness testimony. Our 
witnesses are going to have 5 minutes for their spoken 
testimony. The written will be submitted to the record. There's 
some nice, printed words here that we all got in advance.
    But with that, we'll move to Shari Liss for the first 5 
minutes of witness testimony.

                  TESTIMONY OF MS. SHARI LISS,

           EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE SEMI FOUNDATION

    Ms. Liss. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having 
me. Chairwoman Stevens, Ranking Member Lucas, and Ranking 
Member Feenstra, and Members of the Research and Technology 
Subcommittee, thank you for this incredible opportunity to 
submit testimony about the critical workforce needs of the U.S. 
microelectronic manufacturing sector. We hope to be of service 
in helping you examine the challenges our industry is facing in 
the microelectronics workforce development realm.
    I am the Executive Director of the SEMI Foundation, which 
is a 501(c)(3) arm of SEMI, the global industry association 
representing the microelectronics manufacturing and design 
supply chain connecting over 2,500 member companies. For 20 
years the SEMI Foundation has led SEMI's workforce development 
and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
    Microelectronics is an industry making frequent headlines. 
Supply chain disruptions and chip shortages are impacting 
virtually every industry and our daily lives. Yet compared to 
today's software and social media giants, this industry is 
relatively invisible to most citizens and workers, and that's 
made workforce development a challenge for decades. Compounding 
the issue is the ``Great Resignation,'' which has led to 
substantial worker churn within our member companies. The 
steadily declining U.S. share of global semiconductor capacity, 
COVID-related supply chain disruptions, and an aging workforce 
are all important factors. The semiconductor industry's ability 
to advance and thrive faces serious challenges as it contends 
with an acute shortage of core skills and talent.
    Yet another challenge is how to best prepare new workers 
for the industry and the industry for new workers. Training 
programs must simultaneously be industry-led and worker-
centric, and this process is not simple. Industry must dictate 
the specific skills and competencies needed for high-demand 
open jobs, and prospective workers must have support systems in 
place to complete training and be positioned for success in 
their new workplaces. Further, companies report that many 
workers lack the essential soft skills, teamwork, 
communication, professionalism, time management, conflict 
resolution, et cetera, that's needed to thrive in these 
workplaces.
    Finally, companies looking to hire a more diverse workforce 
need to shift their workplaces to a more equitable and 
inclusive spaces or these new workers will not feel welcome and 
possibly leave those jobs or the industry entirely. 
Accomplishing all of the above requires significant 
investments. Impacted jobs range all across the supply chain 
from entry-level positions in manufacturing to advanced 
technical jobs. Our most current data shows that in the last 12 
months there were 88,000 open jobs just from SEMI member 
companies alone. Our worker shortage is extreme.
    It's also important to consider the relative invisibility 
of the microelectronics industry compared to adjacent 
industries such as software and social media. Microelectronics 
companies do not have the same name recognition or allure as 
companies such as Facebook--or now Meta--Apple, Spotify, or 
Google even though our industry enabled each of these 
technologies.
    The SEMI Foundation has a framework of initiatives that 
help address these workforce challenges that provides a step-
by-step path for leaders to engage with the industry and invest 
strategically so we can accelerate economic opportunity for 
all. Some of the elements include our Industry Image and 
Awareness Campaign. This national media and education campaign 
has two elements: a PBS documentary series highlighting careers 
in our industry that will reach up to 60 million viewers, and 
an online career portal which launches this summer. We're also 
launching the SEMI Career and Apprenticeship Network, or SCAN, 
designed for the EDA's (Economic Development Administration's) 
good jobs challenge. SCAN is a registered apprenticeship 
program that trains, supports, and places people into quality 
jobs at committed employees--employers. We also do extensive 
work with veterans, high school students, and in the realm of 
diversity, equity, and inclusion.
    While these programs are highly beneficial, there are 
challenges to creating programs that benefit students, 
employees, and employers. A major issue in ensuring programs 
are industry-led, meaning that the programs truly train workers 
in high-demand skills for currently open jobs while also being 
worker-centric so prospective employees have the support 
systems they need to complete training and be positioned for 
success.
    It's also crucial that workplaces are truly welcoming and 
embrace active belonging practices. For companies to have the 
workforce they need and to be innovative, productive, and 
profitable, they need a far more diverse workforce. That means 
women returning to work need to feel welcome. That means that 
people that have taken time off for family caregiving need to 
feel welcomed back, that veterans transitioning to civilian 
jobs, justice-involved individuals charting new paths. This can 
only be accomplished through intentional diversity, equity, and 
inclusion practices.
    There are many areas where policymakers can help transform 
our industry for the better. For example, we can increase 
investments in awareness and visibility of programs to recruit 
new individuals into the industry, encourage organizations and 
coalitions to create programs that connect diversity, equity, 
and inclusion to their workforce efforts, and increase 
investments in STEM education to provide support for full 
talent pipeline investment from elementary school all the way 
through university with a focus on recruiting, supporting, and 
retaining underrepresented groups in STEM education.
    Again, thank you so much for this incredible opportunity. I 
look forward to our discussion.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Liss follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you. And now we'll move to Dr. 
Awadelkarim. And we got to get you off mute.

              TESTIMONY OF DR. OSAMA AWADELKARIM,

              UNESCO CHAIR PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR

                OF THE CENTER FOR NANOTECHNOLOGY

                EDUCATION AND UTILIZATION (CNEU)

                AT PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY

    Dr. Awadelkarim. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Stevens. There we go.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. Chairwoman Stevens, Ranking Member 
Feenstra, and honorable Members of the Committee, thank you for 
inviting me to this important hearing. I testify today as a 
Director of the Pennsylvania State University Center for 
Nanotechnology Education and Utilization, known as CNEU. CNEU 
was established in 1998 to address the needs of the 
Pennsylvania semiconductor industry for skilled workers and is 
dedicated to preparing them across the full range of micro- and 
nanofabrication applications. The resources of CNEU, which 
includes an outstanding infrastructure faculty and a cleanroom 
dedicated to hands-on student experiences, are focused on the 
incorporation of nanotechnology into all levels of education.
    CNEU works with industry and over 40 Pennsylvania 
postsecondary institutions to create degree programs 
incorporating nanoscale fabrication and characterization with 
an emphasis on semiconductor process. A strong semiconductor 
industry must have a workforce skilled in fabrication and 
characterization at the nanoscale.
    CNEU pioneered and developed its resource-sharing approach, 
keyword resource-sharing, for such an advanced and complex 
manufacturing, which is forming partnerships with research 
universities, industry, and community colleges to enable 
critical hands-on training, as well as expert faculty resources 
that are not available at community and technical colleges. 
This resource-sharing model established CNEU as a global leader 
in nanotechnology education and workforce development.
    Subsequently, in 2008 the Advanced Technology Education 
Program at the National Science Foundation created the 
Nanotechnology Applications and Career Knowledge Center, or 
NACK, at CNEU. NACK has helped to provide needed national 
micro- and nanotechnology education infrastructure for the 
country by supporting, coordinating, and integrating efforts by 
research universities and community and technical colleges 
across the entire United States. As a result of NACK's efforts, 
the educational workforce development programs in micro- and 
nanotechnology are growing at universities and community 
colleges throughout the United States.
    Industry and research universities have an important role 
to play in assisting workforce development institutions in 
preparing a skilled semiconductor workforce. This includes 
sharing infrastructure, advising on the skills needed, 
providing development opportunities for students and educators, 
funding and donating functional equipment, and assisting in 
student recruitment by highlighting the merits and 
opportunities of joining the microelectronics workforce.
    In 2008, CNEU piloted the Remotely Accessible Instruments 
for Nanotechnology, or RAIN, network, which enables web access 
to state-of-the-art characterization--nano characterization 
tools for hands-on experience for institutions without these 
capabilities. To date, 28 RAIN partners have provided close to 
600 remote access sessions to over 11,000 students. NACK is 
currently working with the NSF Micro Nano Technology Education 
Center to further expand the RAIN network and its utilization.
    For the United States to fill the gap in the semiconductor 
workforce it's important to draw significant numbers of skilled 
workers from underrepresented ethnic groups or populations. 
Therefore, since 2018, CNEU has collaborated with historically 
Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-serving 
institutions. To date--and from African-American and Hispanic 
ethnic groups 45 students including 22 females are being 
trained at CNEU. In addition, 167 other students from the same 
groups train remotely. Enhancing the representation of females 
and other minority groups, including the military veterans, is 
crucial in diversifying and prompting equity and inclusion in 
the microelectronics workforce.
    In the past 2 years, CNEU offered the Nanomanufacturing 
Certificate Program for veterans recruited from military 
installations in the Tidewater region of Virginia. This work is 
in progress and includes attempts to expand the program to 
other branches of the military.
    During this challenging times, our Nation's semiconductor 
industry workforce development needs to be effective, 
efficient, and outcome-driven. This calls for Federal 
Government intervention and action to boost semiconductor 
manufacturing workforce development. Ways in which government 
can assist may include implementing the CHIPS Act, supporting 
creation on sustenance workforce education, partnerships, and 
identifying ways to incentivize industry to become more 
engaged.
    Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Awadelkarim follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairwoman Stevens. Great, thank you, Dr. Awadelkarim.
    And we'll get to Dr. Liu now. Thank you.

               TESTIMONY OF DR. TSU-JAE KING LIU,

        DEAN AND ROY W. CARLSON PROFESSOR OF ENGINEERING

           AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

    Dr. Liu. Thank you. Chairwoman Stevens, Ranking Member 
Feenstra, and Members of the Research and Technology 
Subcommittee, thank you very much for inviting me to testify on 
the topic of strengthening the microelectronics workforce in 
the United States. I'm Dean of the College of Engineering and a 
Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer 
Sciences at the University of California Berkeley where I've 
been leading research on semiconductor devices and technology 
for over 25 years.
    Today, I'm speaking in my capacity as an educator and as 
Chair of the Executive Committee for the American Semiconductor 
Academy Initiative or ASA Initiative. I'm eager to share with 
you my perspective on how universities and colleges in the 
United States can partner with the government and industry to 
secure America's leadership in semiconductor manufacturing.
    The current chip shortage has exposed critical supply chain 
vulnerabilities due to the steady decline in the U.S. share of 
semiconductor manufacturing capacity, which is only 12 percent 
today. Reshoring semiconductor chip manufacturing is critical 
for our country's long-term economic competitiveness and 
national security, and it requires investment in workforce 
development, as well as in new manufacturing facilities.
    Integrated circuits (ICs) are highly complex systems that 
can comprise up to 50 billion transistors on a single silicon 
chip. Designing and building these advanced chips requires 
teams of highly trained and skilled workers.
    Now, back in 2017, a survey found that 82 percent of 
semiconductor industry executives reported a shortage of 
qualified job candidates. The challenge of finding qualified 
workers has only increased since then, and it is now acute at 
all skill and education levels. It takes years to educate and 
train a technician or an engineer, particularly for jobs in the 
microelectronics industry, which is why action is needed now.
    The ASA Initiative aims to grow the talent pool for the 
microelectronics industry with speed and scale in order to meet 
the urgent workforce needs of a resurging domestic 
microelectronics industry. The ASA Initiative promotes 
collaboration between universities and community colleges to 
empower faculty nationwide by sharing curriculum materials and 
best practices for offering high-quality courses and hands-on 
training to a diversity of students. It also engages SEMI, 
which represent over 2,500 member companies across the 
microelectronics ecosystem, to raise awareness and support 
students to pursue careers in microelectronics by facilitating 
industry--by facilitating professional development and access 
to a wide variety of internships and jobs.
    This university-industry partnership can connect more than 
200 universities and community colleges across the country to 
the more than 1,500 SEMI member companies with U.S. operations. 
To truly maximize the scale of this initiative requires 
leadership and support from the Federal Government. We estimate 
that for each $100 million invested per year, approximately 
2,000 additional new graduates can be produced annually for the 
microelectronics industry.
    The Federal Government has shown leadership in the past for 
ambitious initiatives like the space race and the Human Genome 
Project. The recent passage of the COMPETES Act gives me hope 
that America will soon be better equipped to win the chip race. 
Thank you very much for your consideration, and I look forward 
to answering your questions from the Subcommittee Members.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Liu follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you.
    At this point we're going to begin the first round of 
questions. The Chair is going to recognize herself for 5 
minutes.
    Look, this is an incredibly complex sector of our economy 
and sector of industry, and listening to what all of you have 
to say and in your brilliant testimony, as well as reading your 
written testimony, what we are experiencing with the workforce 
shortage is something that most Members of Congress hear day in 
and day out in their districts, that they just can't find the 
employees. I mentioned that I have a program called 
Manufacturing Monday where I work really closely and go and 
visit small to midsize manufacturers and I hear about their 
workforce shortages. We have also known about a skills gap in 
this country for a long time that's only been exacerbated by a 
pandemic. And now, though, we see other industries, home-
improvement sector, you know, the library, the juice shop, you 
know, not necessarily being able to get people in to fill all 
the hours that are available.
    But specifically for semiconductors and what it takes to 
work in a fab, I was wondering if our panel could just lend a 
few minutes to what it takes to go into a fab, you know, the 
suiting up, the intricacies, the development and, you know, if 
there's certain personality or if it's that we just haven't 
explained how essential this is. But when you're walking 
through the doors--and many of you are at the university level, 
that's great, and you're doing this, though, at the university 
level or at the foundation level. So maybe we could start with 
you, Dr. Liu. You know, what does it take to go work in a fab?
    Dr. Liu. Well, that's a wonderful question, Chairwoman 
Stevens. You know, I think hands-on experience--learning 
opportunities is critical in this field. We can learn 
theoretically how transistors and chips are made, but unless 
you work in a fab and you understand why we need a cleanroom in 
the first place, like why do we need to suit up, it's because 
these devices are so small, any bit of dust that might fall on 
your wafer, you know, as you're processing can actually reduce 
the manufacturing yield and cost your company hundreds of 
millions of dollars. So I think the hands-on training portion 
is actually uniquely critical to the semiconductor industry. 
And this is where there's a challenge because it does take time 
to learn the physics and the math and engineering, and then to 
work in a cleanroom takes a lot of patience because it does 
take so many steps to even fabricate some functional dies.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Yes. I've put on the suit several times 
myself, and a lot of respect for people who do it day in and 
day out. And, Ms. Liss, maybe you can talk about this as well, 
particularly in terms of the diversity, equity, and inclusion 
efforts that you have been pursuing. You know, how do we break 
down those barriers? How do we get hands-on learning? How can 
the Federal Government help, if at all?
    Ms. Liss. A great question, and thank you for that. To add 
to Dr. Liu's points, you know, I think in addition to the 
hands-on training and the technical skills, we're also looking 
at building up the soft skills in a number of people. And one 
of the pathways that we're building right now is a registered 
apprenticeship model to tackle exactly this challenge for 
technicians and operators. And in doing that, we're hoping to 
diversify the talent pipeline. We're hoping to open more doors 
to more communities and partner closely with community colleges 
on the ground and technical skills to be able to train folks to 
walk into those cleanrooms. We're already seeing a deficit in 
those needs, and with chips, we imagine the numbers are going 
to grow really substantially in the coming years. So trying to 
open this pathway, diversify the incoming opportunities, and 
not require 4-year degrees to move into that space is going to 
be really critical. So we need support to be able to build out 
those programs, again, to diversify the talent pipeline for 
sure is a huge part of this work.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Yes, and Dr. Awadelkarim, you know, 
you're joined by a couple of my colleagues from the State of 
Pennsylvania who I'm sure are going to be very eager to talk to 
you. But, you know, you've mapped out the presence in your 
written testimony within the State, and I was just wondering if 
you could talk about some of the success stories that you've 
seen.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. OK. First of all, I'd like to underline 
one thing that is very important. We're very fortunate that we 
have a dedicated teaching cleanroom. Penn State has been very 
generous in giving us the space, giving us the funds to build a 
teaching cleanroom. This is not the case in many other research 
universities. Cleanrooms are very expensive to build and very 
expensive to maintain. So most universities restrict them to 
research. And they're hardly--you know, students are hardly 
given opportunities, you know, to actually go into cleanrooms 
and practice hands-on experiences.
    Having this cleanroom and having the general support of the 
State of Pennsylvania since 1998 all the way to 2012, we were 
able to bring students and teach them hands-on experience, and 
students from community colleges hands-on experiences on 
these--in this cleanroom.
    Now, the first thing that we do when students come and stay 
at Penn State is we offer them a very specific course on how to 
deal with the cleanroom.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Yes. And why don't we do this, Dr. 
Awadelkarim, because I'm over my 5 minutes. And, as I 
mentioned, we do have some colleagues on who are from your 
State and I'm sure they would like to brag on what you've 
talked about. So why don't I yield back and pass this over to 
my colleague, the Ranking Member, Congressman Feenstra for 5 
minutes. Thank you so much.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. Thank you.
    Mr. Feenstra. Well, I just want to thank each one of our 
expert witnesses. I mean, you've provided incredible testimony 
and insightful thoughts on these issues. And it's just 
impressive to hear each one of you.
    To followup with you, Dr. Awadelkarim, in your testimony 
you state that the goal of the Centers for Nanotechnology 
Applications and Career Knowledge is to replicate the success 
of your programs nationwide by supporting and integrating 
efforts by community and technical colleges across the country 
to provide nanotechnology workforce education. So given this 
experience, do you think the Federal Government is making 
effective and efficient investments in the nanofabrication 
education and training?
    Dr. Awadelkarim. Actually, I was--you know, this is just a 
followup to my answer, you know, to Chairwoman Stevens. 
Pennsylvania is very critical in supporting us and allowing us 
to do this, you know, for Pennsylvania, you know, community 
college. However, the NSF has picked up Pennsylvania experience 
and then supported us since 2012. Overall, we were able to 
graduate over 1,000 students out of this, you know, 
nanomanufacturing initiative that we have. So I can say that 
the Federal Government, through the NSF, has been very 
generously providing support.
    The support actually primarily goes to bringing the 
students over here and, you know, maintaining them while they 
are here. But I think to actually generalize or replicate this 
experience of ours throughout the United States, more funds are 
clearly needed, you know, to do this, and we have built some 
similar partnerships throughout the United States which can 
actually do the same.
    Mr. Feenstra. Right. I agree 100 percent. Thank you.
    Dr. Liu, thank you for your testimony on the American 
Semiconductor Academy. As we look to expand our workforce while 
being good stewards of taxpayer money, what steps would you 
take to ensure the ASA is capitalizing on the Federal 
investments already made like those at NACK? Do you have a plan 
for leveraging those investments while ensuring there's no 
duplication of efforts?
    Dr. Liu. Absolutely. Thank you for that excellent question, 
Ranking Member Feenstra. As Professor Awadelkarim has 
mentioned, there are universities in the United States who have 
been--which have been supported by the Federal Government to 
establish these very expensive and sophisticated facilities, 
cleanroom facilities to train students. And so the ASA really 
is advocating for increasing accessibility of those facilities. 
So, first of all, modernization because the field of 
microelectronics is a rapidly evolving field, right? The 
technology increases in capability exponentially. The--new 
equipment is invented every year. So we'd like to upgrade the 
existing facilities and then open them up so that they have 
greater--so that more students, a greater diversity of students 
can learn in those facilities. But how do you even coordinate 
that? So Federal investment is needed to help us coordinate and 
leverage existing investments.
    Mr. Feenstra. Right. And do you see--the coordination--I 
look at the Federal programs like the NSF, the national labs, 
the Department of Commerce. Do you see problems coordinating 
there or is that pretty seamless?
    Dr. Liu. I think it's pretty seamless because the 
facilities are standalone. They operate--they do get funding 
for multiple sources. I think this is a multiagency, you know, 
opportunity to work together to support, you know, the 
universities to be able to help more students across the 
country, yes. I think that's the best use of our Nation's--our 
taxpayers' dollars.
    Mr. Feenstra. Well, that's great to hear.
    Ms. Liss, can you please speak on how the American 
Semiconductor Academy can play a role in connecting academia 
and industry to ensure students are being trained with the 
skill sets needed by the industry? I think there's so much 
going on right now, and I'm just wondering how we can do this.
    Ms. Liss. Thank you. That's a great question. And we're 
very excited about our partnership with Dr. Liu and the ASA. 
You know, we been talking a lot about the ability to connect 
industry members to the education system more seamlessly and to 
have input on the needs, the really tremendous and critical 
needs that we are not filling within the workforce from an 
education standpoint in terms of which courses, curriculum, 
degrees are needed to be able to fill all of the jobs that are 
coming. And our partnership is really beautiful in a lot of 
ways because a lot of our work at the SEMI Foundation is 
building the pipeline K-12, building apprenticeship models, 
partnering with the community college system, and now also 
helping to serve into the university system as well. So I think 
by connecting industry voices to university system will be able 
to better identify the competencies and skills that are needed 
in order to be successful in this industry.
    Mr. Feenstra. Well, that's great to hear, thank you.
    Ms. Liss. Thank you.
    Mr. Feenstra. And I yield back. Thanks for each of your 
comments.
    Chairwoman Stevens. All right. Thank you. And now we will 
hear from Congresswoman Ross for 5 minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Ross. Great, I got to go early. Thank you so, so much. 
And this is a terrific panel.
    And I just have to share this. I'm from North Carolina, 
from the Research Triangle area, and I--before I came to this 
Committee meeting, I went to Wake Tech Community College. And 
they just got a $1.4 million NSF grant to allow Wake Tech 
students to do hands-on research, have mentors, get paid 
apprenticeships, get communication skills, and be able to work 
in cutting-edge areas.
    And the student who we talked to was talking about 
antimicrobial resistance, which was--is very important for the 
biotech industry at Wake Tech. But when I talked to the 
President of Wake Tech, he said if there was this kind of NSF 
grant for microelectronics, Wake Tech would be applying for it 
in a heartbeat. And we have a new East Wake Tech campus that's 
opening up soon focusing on manufacturing.
    And so I think maybe starting with Ms. Liss, but I'd like 
to hear from all of the panelists whether or not since we're 
going to be giving NSF some more money and we've got this money 
for semiconductors, whether this type of program where we marry 
all of these things and in addition several of our colleges and 
universities would be involved, including land-grant and HBCUs 
if people wanted to go beyond their apprenticeship and get 
higher education. Tell me whether you think we should set up 
these programs, you know, all across the country or whether 
this works? And let's start with Ms. Liss and then maybe Dr. 
Liu and then keep going around.
    Ms. Liss. Yes, that's an excellent question. And yes, yes, 
and yes. So I think what we're trying to do is build these STEM 
ecosystems that can support this industry in each of the 
regions that we're focused on. And our Good Jobs Challenge 
grant app that we just submitted, it was building an ecosystem 
in California and Arizona as two starting points. But we've 
already been approached by multiple States to do similar and 
expanded work. I think bringing together workforce development 
boards, K-12 education, community colleges, universities, 
economic councils, State-level legislators is going to be 
really critical in building things that will help scale and be 
supported and continue to be maintainable. You know, I think--
and sustainable. I think that's going to be the most critical 
part of this work is bringing together all of these voices to 
make sure that we're adding real value to this industry and 
finding the folks that can make the most difference in the 
world through it. So, yes, absolutely. I love that that grant 
was awarded and we're doing some more work. Thank you.
    Ms. Ross. Dr. Liu and then Dr. Awadelkarim.
    Dr. Liu. Yes, thank you, Congresswoman Ross. That is 
wonderful. Congratulations on Wake Tech's success in securing 
that grant.
    I echo everything that Ms. Liss said, and I just want--just 
would like to add that at Berkeley we have had programs funded 
by the NSF. We call it Transfer-to-Excellence to support 
community college students coming to Berkeley because we have 
the facilities to gain research experience during the 
summertime. But I think the key there is to expose them to 
increase awareness of this field and to understand that there 
are good jobs here and this--they can make a tremendous impact 
on society, a positive impact. And then that incentivizes them 
to go back, take their courses more seriously, and even maybe 
not even aim for technician roles but transfer to university 
and aim for higher--a higher level professional degree. So I 
think a lot of it is increasing awareness and attracting 
students and motivating them to stick with it, right? It does 
take many years and it's not easy. It's a rigorous education 
that they must go through. So programs like that I think indeed 
should be replicated. We should share those best practices 
across the Nation.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. Maybe what I could--I always feel very 
happy, you know, when I hear that more money is going to the 
advanced technological education program, the NSF, and that 
seems to be what's going to happen here. So that is very 
encouraging itself.
    I think the ATE (Advanced Technological Education) program 
has done a lot in actually, you know, propagating, you know, 
nanofabrication and semiconductor manufacturing across the 
community colleges. And now the NSF has Micro Nano Technology 
Education Centers, which is a national center, and we at NACK 
are working very closely with this center that is trying to do 
the same thing, in other words, disseminate semiconductor 
education throughout.
    I think the suggestion that I will make is trying to get 
into this program or to this pool of money, universities and 
industries, together with community colleges, in kind of 
partnerships because they need each other and they need the 
infrastructure that is provided by industry and universities so 
that this, you know, approach that we prove very successful, 
you know, resource-sharing could actually flourish. So if that 
kind of funding stream is created, that would be great.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Great. And with that, we are going to 
hear from Congressman Gonzalez.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens and Ranking 
Member Feenstra, for holding this hearing today. Additionally, 
thank you to our witnesses for sharing their expertise on these 
important topics.
    As we've heard from all of our witnesses, it cannot be 
underscored enough how important chips are in day-to-day 
American life. We see that in every sector of the economy, and 
it's disheartening to hear that over the course of the past 
three decades, manufacturing of these chips has been offshored 
and, even more troublesome, to adversaries like China.
    On the positive side, of course, I was thrilled to learn 
that Intel Corporation has chosen my home State of Ohio as the 
future home of semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The 
project will generate more than 20,000 jobs projected--I think 
it will be higher when we look at downstream jobs--in Ohio and 
reaffirm our stances as a hub for manufacturing and innovation. 
I can almost think of no greater economic development tool than 
bringing our chips--chip manufacturing back home to the United 
States, but of course they should all come to Ohio.
    Dr. Awadelkarim, in your testimony you highlighted the 
important collaboration between Penn State, Pennsylvania 
community colleges, and other 2-year degree-granting 
institutions. How would a State like Ohio or any other State 
benefit from these sorts of collaborations going forward?
    Dr. Awadelkarim. OK. The reason that our initiative was 
only, you know, Pennsylvania-based is because of the funding of 
the State of Pennsylvania, which restrict us to only work with 
community colleges in Pennsylvania. However, through the NSF, 
we're also working with community colleges. I could have 
certainly, you know, right, you know, give an answer, you know, 
to the kind of community--a written answer to community 
colleges that we work with in Ohio, but NACK works across the 
entire United States. And so we're able to work with Ohio.
    But the biggest issue is for the student to come to Penn 
State, that involves high cost for them, and then they need to 
be able to find the funds so as to do that. So we prefer that 
the work with neighboring university, research university that 
can provide that experience to them.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. And what is it about the partnership 
that works well? And I'm asking from the standpoint of trying 
to figure out, you know, what should all of our States be 
thinking about in order to duplicate the success that you've 
had in Pennsylvania? What are those key things that we should 
be doing more of?
    Dr. Awadelkarim. What I would say, the No. 1 thing is 
funding of course, you know, for students, you know, to be able 
to attend. That's one thing. The other thing is to propagate 
the experience and replicate it. In other words, get some 
interest in research university and industry that they're able 
to do this. And now you're saying that Intel is moving to Ohio, 
that's a big blessing because then Intel can play a crucial 
role, you know, in actually building that partnership simply 
because of the need, you know, for the skilled workforce.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. With that, I'm going to switch to Ms. 
Liss. Piggybacking off that, we know that there's not currently 
enough people still to fill these jobs even though they're 
great jobs. Has the SEMI Foundation begun to look at programs 
that could increase the pipeline? And how should we think about 
spreading awareness in particular for our students?
    Ms. Liss. Yes, all of our programs are about increasing the 
talent pipeline and looking at this desperate situation in 
terms of workforce need. And we actually are about to launch 
this very significant image and awareness campaign around the 
industry. The website tool that we're about to launch in June 
will be a skills analysis and skills gap analysis tool for 
students, for veterans, for women returning to work. It will 
tell the stories of the industry. It will show the breadth and 
depth of the opportunities. It will link to all the 
universities and community colleges that are offering content 
and curriculum and degrees in this space. And it is to raise 
awareness about the industry.
    And I don't know if you've talked to high school students 
or even community college students or university students 
recently, but if you ask them if they know anything about the 
semiconductor industry, they will know everything on their 
phone but not how it works, and so we need to change that 
dynamic. And from an image perspective, the image is only the 
white coat and the cleanrooms. Although that's part of it, 
there's so much other opportunity within the industry. So being 
able to tell the story in a way that's exciting and sexy for 
kids is going to be really critical in building workforce.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, thank you for sharing that. I couldn't 
agree more. And the one thing I like that we're highlighting in 
this panel is--or in this hearing is that the skills need to 
exist across a whole host of demographics and educational 
backgrounds, right? It's not just Ph.D.'s, 4-year college. 
Let's get community colleges, let's get the skilled trades 
involved and make sure that we have everything we need to 
really restart chip manufacturing here in the United States. 
Thank you----
    Ms. Liss. If I----
    Mr. Gonzalez. Yes.
    Ms. Liss. I'm sorry, I was just going to say. If it's OK, 
I'm already talking to folks in Ohio.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Wonderful. Well, I love to hear that.
    Ms. Liss. There's a lot of interest.
    Mr. Gonzalez. There absolutely is. And with that, I will 
yield back to Madam Chair. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Excellent. And with that, we're going 
to hear from my friend and colleague Congressman Tonko. Your 
friend and colleague, too, Congressman Gonzalez, so----
    Mr. Tonko. OK, Chair Stevens, can you hear me? Thank you.
    Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ranking Member Feenstra 
and the witnesses, for being here today.
    At the heart of the education and workforce engine driving 
the U.S. microelectronics industry are our colleges and 
universities. If we as a nation intend to reassert ourselves as 
a global leader in chip fracturing, we definitely need a well-
funded and sustained national strategy, a strategy that engages 
our community colleges, our 4-year colleges, and research 
universities with industry on a large enough scale to make a 
real impact.
    New York's capital region is home to prime examples of 
higher ed institutions with access to cutting-edge fabrication 
facilities for firsthand learning opportunities. The Albany 
NanoTech Complex, for example, is the most advanced publicly 
owned semiconductor R&D facility in our United States and 
supports workforce development at all levels. Tech Valley High 
School is located at that site. It has ongoing programs with 
community colleges for technician training, and it coordinates 
with all 64 of our city campuses to increase opportunities in a 
variety of career paths from engineering to process operators 
and maintenance technicians.
    GlobalFoundries also in my district established the first 
United States Department of Labor-registered apprenticeship 
program in the semiconductor industry at its Malta, New York, 
headquarters. It's an 18-month maintenance technician 
apprenticeship program with on-the-job training, instructor-led 
classes, web-based courses and college courses in partnership 
with Hudson Valley Community College and other nearby schools. 
Learning opportunities like these great capital region examples 
enable direct transitioning to the semiconductor manufacturing 
workforce and should be encouraged and replicated throughout 
the country.
    As you may be aware, the House passed the Microelectronics 
Research for Energy Innovation Act as part of the broader 
America COMPETES Act of 2022. I led this bill in partnership 
with my colleague Mr. Ellzey, and it would authorize an effort 
to leverage the Department of Energy's (DOE's) capabilities, 
including the DOE national labs and their partners in industry 
and academia, to tackle foundational challenges in the 
scientific areas relevant to microelectronics. Among the 
provisions included in the MICRO Act are directives to support 
workforce development efforts related to microelectronics 
through scholarships, fellowships, education, and public 
outreach activities, hands-on research and equipment training 
programs, and indeed certificate programs.
    So, Dr. Liu, can you comment on how the national labs might 
serve as unique venues for the type of activity authorized in 
the MICRO Act?
    Dr. Liu. Well, thank you so much, Congressman Tonko. And 
it's very inspiring, the example of the New York State, you 
know, Albany partnership between government and industry and 
universities and colleges. It's really a model, I think, that 
we do indeed need replicated in other parts of the country, 
including Ohio, Texas, Arizona, and so on.
    So the Department of Energy of course has invested in 
microelectronics because they need the world's best computers, 
right, for their work. And so the national labs also serve as a 
resource for our country to train future engineers and 
technicians perhaps for some more--aiming for defense industry, 
you know, careers, so they definitely play a complementary role 
to universities and offer hands-on, practical skills training 
that actually can also help to incentivize students to stick 
with it and pursue these careers because a lot of the students, 
once they take a course in computer science and have an 
internship there, they're hooked. We need to give them 
internships early. And so this is why we need to work together, 
network. How do we replicate the model in Albany? Well, we need 
a network to share that through, and so this is what we'd like 
to do as soon as possible. Thank you so much for your support.
    Mr. Tonko. Oh, thank you. And would either of our other two 
witnesses want to comment?
    Ms. Liss. Sure. The hub in New York is one of the most 
talked about and hopefully replicated models around. Meeting 
with the Hudson Valley Community College, SUNY (State 
University of New York) Poly, trying to figure how we can build 
upon the successes that are happening there and with 
GlobalFoundries as well in terms of the apprenticeship model 
that they've launched so successfully. So it is about taking 
best practices and hoping to replicate that work and seeing 
that really come to fruition across the country.
    I just want to give my other panelists a moment as well, 
but thank you.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you so much.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. And I also commend--you know, we have a 
lot of work ongoing with Albany, SUNY Albany, and SUNY Albany 
has a NEATEC Center, which is Northeast Advanced Technological 
Center, again, funded by the NSF. We've been working together 
for several years now, more than 10 years, and we're still, you 
know, engaged with them. And I think the investment that the 
State of New York has put, you know, on boosting the 
semiconductor workforce and training, I think it was--it's 
commended, you know, and we certainly work with them in many 
areas.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you so much. And, Madam Chair, I'll just 
tell you that it's an honor to have worked with this as the New 
York State Assembly Chair on Energy when I was there in that 
body and as the leader at NYSERDA, the State Energy Research 
and Development Authority, and now in Congress. So it's been a 
great bit of collaboration and I'm very proud of it and I hope 
we can continue to expand upon it and spread it across the 
country. And thank you for your leadership with the 
Subcommittee. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Stevens. All right. And now we will hear from 
Dr. Baird for 5 minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I know you have a 
background in the auto industry, so this--that makes this 
hearing even more significant to you.
    And I want to congratulate my colleague, Representative 
Feenstra. And you know, he mentioned agriculture and he 
mentioned equipment. It's amazing to me that we have such 
sophisticated equipment today to be able to do precision 
agriculture, and it's going to be so important down the road to 
be able to provide food and fiber for the world that we do. And 
so if you have not ever been to a farm progress show, I think 
Randy would tell you that that's a good place to see all kinds 
of technology in place and in action, and it requires all these 
semiconductors to do it.
    But, you know, this hearing--and I think it's really 
important. We have focused on making sure that we try to 
energize and attract young people into the industry. And I can 
tell you this. One of the avenues that I see in my district has 
been the community colleges. And many of you mentioned the 
community colleges. But they are right next to in those 
communities to industries, and they've been working across the 
board with one another to provide the training that is needed 
for that industry from that community college. And then in that 
same vein I think it takes leadership at the universities as 
well.
    And so my question to all of you is do you think that we 
have sufficient staffing at, say, Purdue or Berkeley or Penn 
State? I think I got them all in there from here anyway. But do 
you think we've got enough faculty currently on staff to try to 
help this grow that has the base, you know, like Purdue's got a 
lot of engineering and a lot of this could move across. And so 
we might have a sufficient number of faculty to at least expand 
on this. So my question goes to all the witnesses. And so, Dr. 
Liu, I guess we'll start with you.
    Dr. Liu. All right. Thank you so much, Congressman Baird. 
That's an excellent question. It's something we haven't talked 
about yet. It is true, there will be a need for more faculty 
who are empowered to teach, you know, cutting-edge 
microelectronics curriculum. And many of the faculty members 
who teach in this area today will be retiring in the near 
future, and so I think there is a need.
    As a part of that $100 million a year investment that I 
mentioned earlier does appropriate funding for universities to 
incentivize universities to prioritize hiring a faculty in our 
field because today a lot of universities are looking to hire 
faculty like in computing or so on because there's such a huge 
demand for that--for those workers as well. So I think some 
incentives for universities to prioritize hiring of faculty in 
microelectronics and to help them startup research programs, so 
a little bit of, you know, investment is definitely needed 
there. And we can do the same at community colleges as well. So 
I agree that we--that that is a need.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you. Good to hear. Dr. Liss?
    Ms. Liss. I agree with everything that Dr. Liu just said. 
As we're watching the technology shift and change, too, there's 
going to be new trainings that are going to be needed for the 
university professors, as well as community college professors. 
It is a concern in the community college space that I'm working 
with closely on this apprenticeship model and on training are 
entry-level engineers. There's a lot of concern about keeping 
up with AI machine learning, data science, and making sure that 
we have all of the right professors in place to do all of that, 
so absolutely the need is going to continue to grow as well on 
that front.
    Mr. Baird. Super. Thank you. Dr. Awadelkarim?
    Dr. Awadelkarim. That's an excellent question. Thank you 
for that question. Yes, there is a need of course for staffing 
to be able to do this. And at CNEU, you know, we hire our own 
staff and we have the funding, so we pay the salaries, et 
cetera. So none of Penn State faculty are involved in actually 
teaching these courses. We have our own staff. So that's one 
important thing.
    But I'm very excited about ASA and what is being said here 
because it's bringing together industry, universities, and 
community colleges, and that could be an issue that could be 
addressed there, and ASA could play a big role, you know, in 
facilitating that kind of need or demand. And I think it's 
doable if, you know, the proper funding is in place, you know, 
to do that, and if industry plays an effective role in 
surmounting that hurdle.
    Mr. Baird. Well, thank you for that. And I--you know, I'm a 
strong advocate for the United States of America taking a lead 
role around the world, and I think we have the talent and the 
capability. And so having the kind of input we have from you 
here today helps us make the appropriate decisions on this 
Committee where we can direct dollars to maybe help entice 
getting that back to our country.
    So I've got 8 minutes left, Madam Chair, and I'm going to 
give you 4 of those. Thank you very much.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Great, thank you. And thank you, Dr. 
Baird. And with that, we'll hear from Congresswoman Wild.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. To everybody 
involved in this panel, I represent Pennsylvania's 7th District 
covering the greater Lehigh Valley where we have a proud 
tradition of American manufacturing leadership. And when I meet 
with local manufacturers no matter what industry we're talking 
about, they always say that a reliable supply of modern chips 
is one of their top business needs.
    I also have a significant semiconductor industry presence 
in my district. I recently visited the Allentown location of 
Infinera, a company that designs and assembles advanced 
microelectronics. And my district is a major site for 
Advantest, an automatic test equipment provider for the 
semiconductor industry to validate chip functions.
    So I have been really proud to support the CHIPS Act and to 
support fully funding it by passing the America COMPETES Act.
    I do believe that Congress must act quickly. This should be 
a top priority to jumpstart our return to American leadership 
in semiconductor manufacturing, a capability that is vital to 
our Nation's overall manufacturing ability and to our national 
security.
    And welcome in particular I have to do a shout out to Dr. 
Awadelkarim. I know I botched your name. I'm so sorry, I tried. 
Welcome to a fellow Pennsylvanian here, and thank you so much 
for your work with Penn State.
    In--now, this is--in your written testimony, each of you 
has touched on the importance of on-the-job and apprenticeship 
training programs, especially for technician training. 
Advantest, which has a site in my district, has closely 
followed the work of SEMI and hopes to develop technical 
apprenticeship programs possibly as a complement to community 
college learning to address its workforce needs.
    Ms. Liss, your written testimony describes SEMI's workforce 
development initiatives, including apprenticeship models. Based 
on your experience leading that work, what barriers exist to 
engaging employers in an apprenticeship model?
    Ms. Liss. That is a great question. Thank you so much. I'm 
actually working quite closely with Advantest----
    Ms. Wild. Oh, good.
    Ms. Liss [continuing]. On that project as well.
    Ms. Wild. Good.
    Ms. Liss [continuing]. Which is wonderful. The barriers for 
industry engagement is the question, so----
    Ms. Wild. Yes, what barriers exist to engaging employers in 
this--in the apprenticeship model?
    Ms. Liss. Yes, I think it is essentially a heart and mind 
shift across the industry. So as the semiconductor industry in 
working with hundreds of companies all the time, you know, the 
past has always been hiring folks with 4-year degrees, with 
Ph.D.'s, with master's degrees. Everybody has to be very 
educated to be successful in this space. At the same time, the 
industry is saying that we have a real workforce development 
challenge and we'd like to diversify that workforce. So in 
order to kind of bridge those two sort of compelling challenges 
within the industry, we have to start looking at these 
alternative pathways to hire.
    So I think from an industry engagement point of view, it's 
getting people to understand and recognize that these jobs can 
be filled through an apprenticeship model, through alternative 
pathways, through technical training and not necessarily 
require everybody to hold at least a 4-year degree to be 
successful. And for me that's the great--that's been the 
greatest learning and from the challenging perspective of 
working with the industry on that particular model. Everybody 
agrees it's needed. It's just getting----
    Ms. Wild. Right.
    Ms. Liss [continuing]. The buy-in.
    Ms. Wild. So are there academic or government services that 
are needed to complement the on-the-job training piece of this?
    Ms. Liss. Absolutely. You know, so from an academic 
standpoint we had to do classroom hours for everybody that goes 
through an apprenticeship model. We decided to go the 
registered apprenticeship route because it also supplies 
wraparound services for workers. It supplies paid community 
college in several States, so it's very worker-centric-focused, 
which is a fabulous addition if we want to look at retaining 
talent, right? And so from an academic standpoint we have to 
actively engage the community colleges in this, in addition to 
the hands-on training component that happens within either the 
university centers or the industry placements themselves.
    Ms. Wild. Well, I'm very much on the same page with you. 
I--my district has two fantastic community colleges. We have 14 
in all of Pennsylvania. Two of them are in my district. And 
they have a wonderful reputation for working with the employers 
in our region.
    And I would just--let see, do I--I have 30 seconds here. 
I'd just be interested from Dr. Awadelkarim--so sorry, I know 
I'm really botching that. If you could just address the 
challenges that institutions--educational institutions face in 
forming partnerships with these employers.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. One of the difficulties actually is 
actually the availability of internships and apprenticeships, 
you know, for the students, you know? They are out there and we 
know students could apply for them, but, you know, the number 
of students that actually would like to do this, you know, or 
to take this opportunity are more. You know, they outnumber, 
you know, the number of available positions. So if industry 
could provide some kind of incentive, you know, to come to 
industry that could provide more of these positions, that of 
course would be very, very, very welcome, you know, because we 
try to place those students in internships and apprenticeships, 
you know, in industry, and that is often very difficult to do.
    One important thing--one important part that I should also 
mention, what about the educators and community colleges 
themselves? They need fellowships to be able to actually work 
with industry because they go back, take this experience, and 
teach back at their community colleges. And that is one big 
part of a professional development program that we do for 
educators of community colleges. I haven't discussed that in 
the--my oral statement, but I've written quite a bit on that on 
the written statement, too.
    Ms. Wild. Well, thank you so much. My time is definitely 
up. This--I could talk about this all day. Thank you, Madam 
Chair. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Great questions. And with that we'll 
hear from Congressman Ellzey.
    Mr. Ellzey. Hey, Madam Chair, thank you for recognizing me. 
I didn't have any questions today. Thank you to all the 
witnesses for coming today. It's been an interesting 
conversation and much needed, so thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Baird. Madam Chair, I think they're waiting on you.
    Chairwoman Stevens. I appear to have a sound issue. Can--is 
Congressman Ellzey asking 5 minutes of questions right now or 
did he yield?
    Mr. Ellzey. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Stevens. OK. He said no questions. Thank you, 
yes, sorry, my sound went out. So with that, we will hear from 
Mr.--Dr. Bill Foster from Illinois for 5 minutes of questions. 
Thank you, Mr. Ellzey. Sorry about that. The sound cut right 
out, but now we can----
    Mr. Foster. Thank you, Madam Chair----
    Chairwoman Stevens [continuing]. Hear from Dr. Foster.
    Mr. Foster. Yes, am I audible and visible here? OK. Well, 
one of the advantages of Zooming from someone's, you know, like 
private study/den is that I accumulate some of my stuff here. 
So here is my stuff from my previous careers. This is a circuit 
board that I probably spent a week of my life wiring that has 
about 250 integrated circuits on about 4,000 wires that I 
connected and debugged the thing. It was a 40-megahertz, 35-
stage digital pipeline processor that was used to discover the 
top quark, the heaviest known form of matter.
    But during my--and so I was very involved in actually using 
electronic circuits. But when I look at that circuit today, I 
can see the drift of the chip manufacturing business going 
offshore. You know, this was built in about 1985, and most of 
the chips there are Texas Instruments, Motorola, Signetics. 
Actually, you know, Dr. Liu has some name recognition for those 
old, great brands. And Cypress Semiconductor, which I believe 
is still actually not fabless at this point if I'm correct 
about it. Now--and but that's not true. A lot of those 
companies have, you know, disappeared, been acquired, or are 
fabless and do their manufacturing offshore.
    And so one--but 10 years before that back in 1975 when I 
was starting my company with my little brother, we had the 
bright idea of using the newly invented microprocessor to 
control theater stage lighting, which had not been done before, 
and so we actually bought the second microprocessor ever built 
from this startup called Intel. And the main memory was the 
Intel 2102 dynamic RAM (random-access memory). Our company's 
phone number today is 4116, the last four digits for the Mostek 
MK4116 16,000 bit dynamic RAM, which seemed infinite at the 
time.
    And, you know, I just watched with sort of--with a very 
heavy heart watching the dynamic RAM business go offshore, 
first to Japan, then Korea, now a big part of it to Taiwan and 
China, and so trying to understand what we should have done. 
And it's not just integrated circuits. It is passives. You 
know, when I--when we were starting our company, if you wanted 
precision crystal oscillators you went to Connor-Winfield in 
the Illinois 11th District, and now there are many offshore 
vendors they compete with. If you wanted inductors, precision 
inductors, you went to Coilcraft, and now they are--who do I 
think a big part of their manufacturing offshore. And so, you 
know--so we have to keep our eyes on passives and packaging as 
surely as we do on just chips themselves.
    But also, you know, during my time at Fermilab, after a 
while, it became clear that in order to do the experiments we 
needed to do, we had to design and build our own ICs. And so I 
don't want to over claim, but I think I'm the only Member of 
Congress that's designed 10 integrated circuits and had them 
all work the first time. And so--and we also did a lot of 
supervising of engineers who, you know, made the final versions 
of these designs.
    And so, yes, Dr. Liu, you also supervised these engineers, 
and one of the thing that I was struck by is it was--the thing 
that got them going is this is my chip. And, you know, we 
would--we at that time had access to something called MOSIS, 
which I take it has kind of disappeared, which is a way that 
they--you know, you used to be able to get for not very much 
money a small number of a new chip design, you know. And the 
fact that that, too, has disappeared I think really takes the 
wind out of getting young engineers excited about this.
    So I was wondering, you know, what are the things that have 
been tried to keep multi-project wafers going that would let, 
you know, graduate students or even undergrads have access and 
actually build their own chip and get that thrill of seeing the 
chip they designed work?
    Dr. Liu. Well, that's a wonderful question, Congressman 
Foster and Dr. Foster. I actually appreciate that engineers can 
also contribute to the leadership of our country, so it's a 
pleasure to engage with you in conversation.
    So, you know, your question was about the multichip--or 
multi-project wafer programs. So it turns out that Intel is in 
the process of--actually offers a multi-project wafer kind of 
service. They call it the University Shuttle. And--but part of 
the challenge is that even though they offer space on chips so 
students can design and see their chips fabricated and they 
eventually test them, the sophistication of the chips has grown 
exponentially since you were a student even though it's not 
that long ago. And so the software tools have evolved to allow 
people to design billion-component or, you know, thousand-
component products essentially within a few weeks of a 
semester. The software tools are actually--are needed to be 
able to design these chips today. And that's where 
accessibility is a challenge because, you know, if the 
computing systems you need, the cloud computing credits you 
need to even design a chip because it's so complex, it poses a 
barrier.
    So this is one of the challenges that we would like to 
address with the ASA network. At Berkeley we actually have 
designed a course where students within one semester can tape 
out a chip--I mean, design a chip and send it to Intel to have 
it fabricated in the 16-nanometer generation technology, which 
is pretty advanced. We would like to be able to package that 
course and allow other faculty at other universities to be able 
to teach that course.
    However, software companies, electronic design automation 
companies have to work with us to make their software tools 
broadly accessible, and that's why the ASA should also 
improve--involve an online platform that's shared across the 
Nation to give students accessibility to those design tools in 
order to be able to actually have their chips fabricated by 
companies like Intel.
    Mr. Foster. OK. And I guess I understand we're having a 
second round of questions, and I'll request further on this 
because we ought to find a way that we can make the--a better 
economic model for getting kids, young kids access to be able 
to build their own chip.
    Dr. Liu. Yes. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Great. That sounds excellent. Thank 
you, Dr. Foster.
    And then with that, we'll move to the second round of 
questions. It appears as though my sound is maintaining itself. 
I don't know why the internet went out for just a minute there, 
but for the next round of questions I'll begin.
    And my question for the panel is, you know, in thinking 
about how we're going to conduct some of the workforce 
development programs, could you discuss--development 
organizations could contribute to some of the efforts of 
assisting with the workforce development needs of the chips 
sector?
    Ms. Liss. I'm sorry, you cut out for a minute and I could 
not----
    Dr. Awadelkarim. Yes.
    Ms. Liss [continuing]. Hear part of that question.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. We couldn't hear it.
    Staff. Ms. Stevens, if you can hear, you cut out for a 
moment, and it looks like your connection froze.
    Mr. Feenstra. I tell you what, this is Congressman Randy 
Feenstra. While she's getting back up, I can ask--Congresswoman 
Stevens, would you like to--you were cutting in and out. Sorry 
about that.
    Chairwoman Stevens. I know. I thought I was cutting in and 
out. I saw you nodding, and then I heard our technical team say 
you cut out. So let me just recap the question.
    You know, the Department of Commerce put out an RFI 
(request for information) in January asking about the workforce 
development needs of the industry. I'm very interested to hear 
how the Department of Commerce--and in full disclosure I'm a 
former Department of Commerce appointee over a decade ago, so, 
you know, not necessarily trying to put anybody on the spot of 
understanding all the ins and outs of the agency, but how 
should the Department structure the workforce development 
requirements under the chips program to ensure that they are a 
true priority and not just a check-the-box exercise? And with 
that, how could Federal agencies other than Department of 
Commerce that are a part of our chips legislation, including 
Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, 
contribute to these efforts? And that's an open question to all 
the panelists. And Dr. Liu is nodding, so maybe we start with 
you, but not to put you on the spot.
    Dr. Liu. Well, thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, for asking 
that question. I think many of the programs in the CHIPS Act do 
mention workforce development, so that speaks to the need that 
transcends all special programs, and it's an urgent need for 
the industry itself that exists today, so not only the programs 
incentivize growth. So I do think that to make the best use of 
taxpayer dollars we really should coordinate and learn and 
share best practices, you know, from different programs that 
have been stood up, especially from the NSF. So I think it's a 
whole-of-government kind of an opportunity, a multiagency 
solution. Yes, that's the gist of it.
    Ms. Liss. You sort of took the words right out of my mouth, 
Dr. Liu. But I do--I think this issue is so big and so pressing 
and so critical that we have to all come together to support 
the efforts. And although, you know, we have mapped sort of 
this holistic look at workforce development, we are just one 
piece of this very giant puzzle, so we're looking at, you know, 
the government agencies coming together and supporting this 
really significant need that's going to develop in the coming 
years when we already see a need, and we just know it's going 
to accelerate and just continue to grow at least over the next 
several years. So we're hoping that everybody will work 
together, as Dr. Liu mentioned, to find solutions to this 
workforce development challenge, and that was in my response on 
the RFI as well.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. What I could add, you know, to my 
colleagues, you know, the comments of my colleague is we have, 
you know, the model of the ATE, the Advanced Technological 
Education, at the NSF and how it, you know, it was very 
successful, you know, in propagating advanced technology across 
local community colleges, so why not learn from that and 
replicate it in Department of Energy and Department of Commerce 
solicitation with emphasis or focus on semiconductor workforce? 
So I think that's an experience that we can learn from and we 
could, you know, apply.
    Mr. Feenstra. You're on mute, Congresswoman.
    Chairwoman Stevens. I'm on my phone. I'm on mute. Thank 
you, Dr. Awadelkarim. You know, I appreciate your getting in 
there as well. And thank you to the brand-new Ranking Member 
for stepping in, you know, when the Chair has, you know, a 
little technical glitch. Congressman Feenstra, I'm happy to 
kick it over to you for 5 more minutes of questions, and thank 
you for indulging us today.
    Mr. Feenstra. Congresswoman, thank you, Chair. Thank you so 
much.
    Ms. Liss, can you please elaborate on the SEMI VetWorks? 
You know, you think many great men and women come out of our 
military service highly skilled but not always with the right 
credentialing to be recruited by this industry. Could you 
please elaborate and speak on the SEMI VetWork tackle--how they 
tackle this challenge and the importance of utilizing this 
vital talent pool?
    Ms. Liss. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that question. You 
know, we see military veterans and reservists as a strong and 
really diverse talent pool that can contribute incredibly to 
this field. And one of the challenges we face with getting 
them--that population to get involved is the same thing that I 
spoke about with students earlier. It's just a lack of 
understanding of the industry. When I had the opportunity to 
speak with some servicemembers at Fort Hood a few times talking 
about the industry and explaining what we do and who we are as 
an industry was--it was similar to talking to students in some 
ways and also convincing folks that they had the incredible 
strengths that they bring to the table that could be very 
successful in our industry.
    We have job fairs. We have resume-sharing. We created a vet 
guide to help our members engage with different bases around 
the country. We were asked by our member companies to develop 
tools to help them connect more readily with veterans. So we're 
really trying to elevate the folks from that part of the sector 
to enter our workforce because we just see the incredible value 
they bring.
    Mr. Feenstra. Well, that's great. I greatly appreciate 
that. I mean, it's just another talent pool that we need to 
use.
    Dr. Liu, I noticed that Iowa State, University of Iowa, and 
the University of Northern Iowa, which are obviously in my 
State, are not currently on the list of American Semiconductor 
Academy university partners. I strongly believe that the 
success to programs like these across the country is vitally 
necessary if we're going to meet the vast industry demand and 
maintain pace with China. What sort of outreach are you 
currently doing or do you plan to do in rural communities to 
ensure that STEM opportunities are available across the 
country, specifically like this in the Midwest?
    Dr. Liu. Congressman, excellent question, Ranking Member 
Feenstra. Absolutely. So in Iowa there are universities and 
community colleges especially that can be a wonderful pipeline 
of talent to the industry. And just to be--to clarify, the list 
of universities that are participating in the ASA Initiative 
are helping to plan it. It is always--it always has been 
intended to be, you know, open and accessible to all 
universities and community colleges in the United States 
because the need is too great. None of us should be trying to 
seek only our--you know, to benefit only ourselves. So I think 
that we would be open to--we would want to reach out to as many 
faculty across the community college systems in every State, as 
well as universities across the country. That is the intention.
    And I'd like to mention here that, you know, community 
colleges are a rich source of talent. I mean, it's a diversity 
of students in community colleges, including veterans. I've had 
a veteran--Navy veteran work in my research group because he 
was at a community college and we had this summer, you know, 
research experience. And after that he continued in my group as 
a visiting scholar doing the academic work, you know, because 
he learned about, you know, semiconductor research and was 
hooked.
    I also wanted to mention that, you know, community college 
and partnership with industry and universities are important 
because there's this knowledge network so--framework, so people 
today, we're training them on how to make sense out of data, 
that we're giving them knowledge of what we need to stay at the 
forefront of technology innovation is wisdom. And so this is 
where university education complements the training and the 
kinds of activities happening at community colleges and in the 
industry. We want to cultivate in students a growth mindset, 
and that way they not only can contribute to the industry but 
also help to continue to lead innovation, right? This is where 
we lead, I think, in the world, and we will lead if we can 
harness all the diversity of talent in the United States.
    Mr. Feenstra. Now, I agree with that, Dr. Liu. How do you--
I mean, this is sort of my area that I'm--I'd like to dive 
into. You talk about quantum computing and AI, and as this 
continues to grow, you know, do you see--I mean, I'm just 
looking at a 30,000-foot view. Do you see that we're getting 
further behind in that truly, you know, expert world 
comparing--compared to other countries globally? I mean, I get 
a little concerned. Or don't you see that necessarily?
    Dr. Liu. I think our country right now is still doing 
leading research in AI and in quantum computing, but it's 
difficult because, unfortunately, for research a lot of our 
students are from other countries, right, in the graduate 
programs. So this is why it's important to raise the visibility 
and awareness that these are really important, you know, 
impactful careers, and we want to attract more domestic 
students to our programs.
    Mr. Feenstra. Thank you so much, and I yield back. Thank 
you.
    Dr. Liu. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Great. And with that, is Congresswoman 
Ross still with us? Great. Go ahead, Congresswoman Ross, 5 
minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. This has just been 
wonderful. And I'm thrilled about our discussion about 
attracting more people to this vital industry.
    One other thing, and I just really--I've been on my soapbox 
about this, but I'd love to hear from all of you about it. We 
have a number of young people who we have educated in this 
country, and they are the DREAMers, both undocumented and 
documented, so children of visa-holders who are now having to 
self-deport at age 21, and they want to stay in this country. 
They've been educated here. They're highly motivated. And I'd 
like to know what your views are on and having us just make 
them eligible to stay here and harness their talent and their 
industry and their desire to be in the United States with that 
talent as opposed to somewhere else in the world? For any and 
all of you.
    Ms. Liss. I can jump in here to start. I can't really speak 
to policy exactly from my seat, but I can say that, you know, 
high-skilled immigrants and students educated in the United 
States are really critical to the workforce and to the global 
industry in general and will positively complement the American 
workforce. So policies that preclude U.S. technology companies 
from employing uniquely skilled immigrants and the elimination 
of opportunities for foreign-born or U.S.-educated STEM 
students is pretty counterproductive to the continued 
leadership of the U.S. microelectronics supply chain.
    So even more concerning are policies that enable the 
training of many of the world's brightest minds at our colleges 
and universities only to see that talent then be removed. So I 
agree with you. I think it's important for us to stay 
competitive in this space but also to do it in a way that's 
supportive of our country.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you.
    Dr. Awadelkarim. I think that----
    Ms. Ross. Both doctors----
    Dr. Awadelkarim. I add my voice to Dr. Liss, you know, in 
that respect. And as I mentioned in my opening statement that 
we need to--you know, to bring the talent or bring the 
workforce or bring the students from all different groups and 
populations. And I mentioned, you know, the underrepresented 
and the veterans, so obviously, you know, there are more 
channels or more pipelines, then that would be most welcome. So 
I think that's an opportunity that could be explored.
    Dr. Liu. I'd just like to add to my colleagues' remarks 
that, you know, it's all about meeting the workforce need but--
so diversity of talent is wonderful for increasing the number 
of workers but also for increasing the creativity of the 
innovations that we come up with. We all know that if we have a 
greater diversity of ideas in a room, the likelihood that we'll 
come up with something that's even more innovative than our 
competitors is higher. So I think including a wide diversity of 
students is important not only to meet the workforce 
development need but also to meet the need for talent and 
innovation to stay in the lead once we recapture it.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. Liss. Can I add something? Is that allowed?
    Chairwoman Stevens. Yes.
    Ms. Ross. I don't yield back. I reclaim my 1 minute----
    Ms. Liss. Sorry.
    Ms. Ross [continuing]. And 28 seconds, and you may have all 
of it, Ms. Liss.
    Ms. Liss. I didn't know all the rules. I just wanted to add 
to what Dr. Liu said. You know--oh, now, I totally lost my 
thought. I was so on. Oh, I was going to say the studies, 
there's a ton of studies about diversity of thought and 
leadership and even profitability at companies who look to 
hiring a diverse--you know, from diverse communities and 
supporting that, especially on a rise to leadership as well. So 
diversifying is so powerful and important across the board, and 
I just wanted to make sure I said that because I think 
profitability for the companies is also a good selling point on 
the DEI strategies as well.
    Ms. Ross. Well, thank you. And I think we should try to 
recruit and retain as much talent as possible in this country. 
It improves our competitiveness, it improves our innovation, 
and it improves our communities. And with that, Madam Chair, I 
yield back.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Excellent. And with that, we'll--I 
think Dr. Baird was going to not ask 5 minutes of questions. Is 
that OK with you, Jim?
    Mr. Baird. Ask me that question again.
    Chairwoman Stevens. You're good? You're not asking 5 
minutes right now? You're in listen mode?
    Mr. Baird. I'm OK.
    Chairwoman Stevens. OK, good. Well, I appreciate you 
mentioning my love for the auto industry and my automotive 
background because you are spot on that this is absolutely a 
topic that's near and dear to our automotive workforce. And, 
you know, Mr. Gonzalez talked about the Intel lab going into--
the new fab going into Ohio. Well, it's not Michigan, but it's 
in our area, and that's one of the things we celebrate here is 
all of our Midwestern colleagues. And so we do have another 
colleague from the Midwest, Dr. Foster, who wants to ask 5 
minutes of questions here.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you.
    Mr. Foster. OK. Well, first off, I'd like to just second 
everyone's endorsement of the concept of, you know, basically 
stapling a green card to a STEM Ph.D. diploma, you know, 
particularly in things like chip design. And, you know, the 
COMPETES Act kept components of our Keep STEM Talent Act, which 
was essentially a proposal to do this and not only for Ph.D. 
theses but master's theses and the full range of STEM skills 
that are necessary for a good integrated circuit design 
ecosystem.
    And, you know, at the national lab where I was, you know, 
operating or providing work at least for a lot of the chip 
design team at Fermi National Lab, we always found that a very 
diverse chip design team was tremendously productive. And we 
had these--you know, these blonde all-American kids, and we 
had, you know, Palestinians. We had just everyone you can 
imagine, you know, contributing ideas on these chips that 
really were way beyond what was even available commercially. 
And so I--you know, I saw that benefit up close, the diverse 
thought inputs.
    Now, if I can go back to the question of trying to get 
students hands-on equipment, you know, Dr. Liu mentioned 
correctly that when you have access to absolute state-of-the-
art chip designs, you can't--you know, it would be crazy to let 
the kids have access to the actual fab equipment, you know? 
Intel cannot let that happen. It's--we ran into that in high-
energy physics where, you know, even graduate students were not 
allowed to touch the detector because they'd have some bright 
idea and, you know, disrupt the thing. And so that is reality.
    And you're also right to point out that it is the software 
that is really the high bar for entry. You know, back when I 
was designing integrated circuits, they had an open source tool 
called Magic, which may be--do you remember? Yes. Which, you 
know, any university could download and submit a chip and it 
was very open. But some of the intellectual property in the 
chip design software is some of the software that should be 
very closely guarded so that if--that technology does not go 
offshore. And so that is a--you know, it's a real risk that we 
have to find a way to let, you know, universities all over the 
country have access to that state-of-the-art software to build 
state-of-the-art chips and yet not have the intellectual 
property escape. And I think cloud computing has the benefit. 
So that's part of the problem, and I think we can set up a very 
broad-based thing so that anyone in any rural college has equal 
access to state-of-the-art chip fabrication through access to 
the software.
    However, there's a second part of the problem, which is 
getting the next generation of IC process designers and just 
electronic device inventors and having them get access. And 
that's a tougher one because I think you actually need to have 
physical access to the equipment. There is no substitute to be 
able to just walk into the lab, adjust the temperature of this 
or the time of this or the chemical reagents in this step and 
see how it affects device performance.
    And so how--what--you know, what are the promising ways of 
getting that--you know, I think it's unrealistic to distribute 
that to every college in the United States, but we have to have 
at least regional centers where within a reasonable, you know, 
daytrip you can come in and get your hands on that sort of 
equipment. And what are the promising avenues there and the 
ones where the COMPETES Act may be a help? Yes, Ms. Liss, do 
you want to take a stab at that? Or Dr. Liu, either one.
    Dr. Liu. Ms. Liss----
    Ms. Liss. Doctor, do you want to start?
    Dr. Liu. Oh, thank you. Really quickly, we only have a 
minute left, so absolutely, we--so part of the ASA's goal is to 
open up these, let's say, 25 to 30 cleanroom facilities around 
the country so that students can travel not too far, within a 
day, to get hands-on training because I think that's so 
critical, like you have explained. I think we also can take 
advantage of advancements in computing, and this is a good 
research project that could be funded, for example, by the NSF 
to develop digital twins, right? So we can actually create 
digital twins of equipment, of process flows so students at 
these community colleges and universities that don't have 
cleanrooms can actually start to play around with processes and 
try to build devices a little bit before they actually show up 
and play with it hands-on physically to make the most efficient 
use of their time and limited resources at the universities 
that do have these facilities.
    Ms. Liss. I would just add----
    Mr. Foster. There's a big role for the national labs also 
in this that was--because that--you know----
    Dr. Liu. Yes.
    Mr. Foster [continuing]. There are nanotechnology centers 
and so on that--and I know Berkeley is involved in that.
    Dr. Liu. Yes. Yes. Thank you.
    Ms. Liss. And I would just add real quick that, you know, 
it's coming up with a lot of member companies as well that we 
need more training centers to support their needs, so 
everybody's talking about where we could create hubs of 
training centers that could really help benefit and partner 
with university systems as well. So it's definitely a big topic 
of conversation across our member companies.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. And we have to find the right way to 
subsidize that because it won't be a short-term driver of 
profits, and so we just have to recognize that it's a public 
good to have a highly trained integrated circuit design 
workforce and just--and that's the sort of thing where the 
government has to have a role. And I think we've made a mistake 
in not--in trying--being too purist that market's the solution 
to everything here. There are times when we have to come 
together and produce a--you know, a public good like a trained 
workforce.
    OK. Well, thanks much, and my time is expired.
    Chairwoman Stevens. Great. Well, thank you for the second 
round of questions, and thank you again to our witnesses for 
testifying today as we look to all the work ahead for this 
amazing industry, its complexities, the people, all of you who 
are a part of it.
    The record is going to remain open for 2 weeks for 
additional statements from Members and for any additional 
questions that the Committee might ask of you, our witnesses. 
But at this time, quarter to noon Eastern, the witnesses are 
excused, and the hearing is now adjourned. Thank you all so 
much.
    [Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                Appendix

                              ----------                              


                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions


[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 [all]